Tiny hearT

Technology

2010-12-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

Technology as what we all know is broad, and it has been very helpful to the world today in terms of speeding up work in order to increase productivity. Technology has become a need to every human being today. In school, in work and in everything we do. Simple machines are considered technology as well, since it speeds up work and reduces human efforts.

Why use technology?

The very first thing that comes to my mind is to ease the way of living.

Before: People used to walk to their destinations no matter how far the distance is, this is because they've got no choice.

Today: People can easily go to places they wanted to be in. Through technology, they were able to get to their destination in no time. Thus, they save time and energy.

Communication

Before: The only way to communicate with friends, family and to other people is through letters. These letters are mailed and will take few days in order for it to get to the receiver.

Today: Telephones, mobile phones, fax machines, e-mailing etc. simplifies the way communication goes. Through the said technology, you would be able to communicate with love ones in an instant. Thus, information is easily passed through.

Technology Change

Technology changes because of the needs of the society. It is dependent on the demand that the world demands. Technologies are developed because it is needed. Another thing that changes technology is how the people adopts it. Will they be able to use a said technology easily? It should also be safe to use regarding the catastrophes that are happening to the world. And the last thing is the cost of its production. It should be feasible and cost effective.

Life Cycle of a School

2010-01-04T02:36:00.000-08:00

Life Cycle can be defined in many ways and forms, and as for this topic, we would only tackle the three views life cycle.

Systems Development Life Cycle

The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), or Software Development Life Cycle in systems engineering and software engineering, is the process of creating or altering systems, and the models and methodologies that people use to develop these systems. The concept generally refers to computer or information systems.

In software engineering the SDLC concept underpins many kinds of software development methodologies. These methodologies form the framework for planning and controlling the creation of an information system: the software development process.

A Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is any logical process used by a systems analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user (stakeholder) ownership. Any SDLC should result in a high quality system that meets or exceeds customer expectations, reaches completion within time and cost estimates, works effectively and efficiently in the current and planned Information Technology infrastructure, and is inexpensive to maintain and cost-effective to enhance.

Computer systems have become more complex and often (especially with the advent of Service-Oriented Architecture) link multiple traditional systems potentially supplied by different software vendors. To manage this level of complexity, a number of systems development life cycle (SDLC) models have been created: "waterfall"; "fountain"; "spiral"; "build and fix"; "rapid prototyping"; "incremental"; and "synchronize and stabilize".[citation needed]

SDLC models can be described along a spectrum of agile to iterative to sequential. Agile methodologies, such as XP and Scrum, focus on light-weight processes which allow for rapid changes along the development cycle. Iterative methodologies, such as Rational Unified Process and Dynamic Systems Development Method, focus on limited project scopes and expanding or improving products by multiple iterations. Sequential or big-design-upfront (BDUF) models, such as Waterfall, focus on complete and correct planning to guide large projects and risks to successful and predictable results.[citation needed]

Some agile and iterative proponents confuse the term SDLC with sequential or "more traditional" processes; however, SDLC is an umbrella term for all methodologies for the design, implementation, and release of software.

In project management a project can be defined both with a project life cycle (PLC) and an SDLC, during which slightly different activities occur. According to Taylor (2004) "the project life cycle encompasses all the activities of the project, while the systems development life cycle focuses on realizing the product requirements".

Systems development phases

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) adheres to important phases that are essential for developers, such as planning, analysis, design, and implementation, and are explained in the section below. There are several Systems Development Life Cycle Models in existence. The oldest model, that was originally regarded as "the Systems Development Life Cycle" is the waterfall model: a sequence of stages in which the output of each stage becomes the input for the next. These stages generally follow the same basic steps but many different waterfall methodologies give the steps different names and the number of steps seem to vary between 4 and 7. There is no definitively correct Systems Development Life Cycle model, but the steps can be characterized and divided in several steps.

Initiation/planning
To generate a high-level view of the intended project and determine the goals of the project. The feasibility study is sometimes used to present the project to upper management in an attempt to gain funding. Projects are typically evaluated in three areas of feasibility: economical, operational or organizational, and technical. Furthermore, it is also used as a reference to keep the project on track and to evaluate the progress of the MIS team.[8] The MIS is also a complement of those phases. This phase is also called the analysis phase.
[edit] Requirements gathering and analysis

The goal of systems analysis is to determine where the problem is in an attempt to fix the system. This step involves breaking down the system in different pieces and drawing diagrams to analyze the situation, analyzing project goals, breaking need to be created and attempting to engage users so that definite requirements can be defined. Requirement Gathering sometimes require individual/team from client as well as service provider side to get a detailed and accurate requirements.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_Development_Life_Cycle)

Enterprise life cycle

Enterprise Life Cycle (ELC) in enterprise architecture is the dynamic, iterative process of changing the enterprise over time by incorporating new business processes, new technology, and new capabilities, as well as maintenance and disposition of existing elements of the enterprise.

The enterprise life cycle is a concept in Enterprise Architecture (EA). The Enterprise Architecture process is closely related to other processes, such enterprise engineering and program management cycle, more commonly known as the Systems Development Life Cycle. This concept aids in the implementation of an Enterprise Architecture, and the Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process that selects, controls, and evaluates investments. Overlying these processes are human capital management and information security management. When these processes work together effectively, the enterprise can effectively manage information technology as a strategic resource and business process enabler. When these processes are properly synchronized, systems migrate efficiently from legacy technology environments through evolutionary and incremental developments, and the Agency is able to demonstrate its return on investment. The figure on top illustrates the interaction of the dynamic and interactive cycles as they would occur over time.

Enterprise Architecture Process
As a prerequisite to the development of every enterprise architecture, each Agency should establish the need to develop an EA and formulate a strategy that includes the definition of a vision, objectives, and principles. Executive buy-in and support should be established and an architectural team created within the organization. The team defines an approach and process tailored to Agency needs. The architecture team implements the process to build both the baseline and target EAs. The architecture team also generates a sequencing plan for the transition of systems, applications, and associated business practices predicated upon a detailed gap analysis. The architecture is employed in the CPIC and the enterprise engineering and program management processes via prioritized, incremental projects and the insertion of emerging new technologies. Lastly, the architectures are maintained through a continuous modification to reflect the Agency's current baseline and target business practices, organizational goals, visions, technology, and infrastructure.

Architecture Life Cycle
The architecture is re-analyzed, and the process continues until the operational deficiencies are minimized. The final sets of viable candidates are assessed for operational viability. Based on the results of the assessments, design changes are made and submitted for inclusion into the budgeting process. This process of developing, analyzing, and modifying continues throughout the architecture’s life cycle.

Enterprise Life Cycle activities
An Enterprise Life Cycle integrates the management, business, and engineering life cycle processes that span the enterprise to align its business and IT activities. Enterprise Life Cycle refers generally to an organization’s approach for managing activities and making decisions during ongoing refreshment of business and technical practices to support its enterprise mission. These activities include investment management, project definition, configuration management, accountability, and guidance for systems development according to a System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). The Enterprise Life Cycle applies to enterprise-wide planning activities and decision making. By contrast, a System Development Life Cycle generally refers to practices for building individual systems. Determining what systems to build is an enterprise-level decision.

The figure on the right depicts notional activities of an Enterprise Life Cycle methodology. Within the context of this document, Enterprise Life Cycle does not refer to a specific methodology or a specific bureau’s approach. Each organization needs to follow a documented Enterprise Life Cycle methodology appropriate to its size, the complexity of its enterprise, and the scope of its needs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_Life_Cycle)

Here is an example of school life cycle:

Future School: Product life cycle

The Future School product life cycle guidelines provide advance notification in relation to individual product licenses and their life cycles. These guidelines apply to all Future School products, and provide information about the period of time licenses are available for purchase (mainstream phase) and the associated support Future School distributors provide during the entire life cycle of Future School products. These guidelines are intended to assist customers with their product planning and future information technology decisions.

Future School's policy is that its product licenses can only be purchased for a maximum of three (3) years from the date each product license is first released for sale, and that varying levels of support for a product will only be available for a period of five (5) years from the date that product licence is first released for sale. The different phases of a product are illustrated in the life cycle graph shown above, and are explained below.

Product life cycle phases products and services
Mainstream phase: 3 years

1. Each Future School product license is available for purchase through all standard product distribution channels;
2. Distributor assisted support is available from the distributor from whom the product license is purchased;
3. Website support is available from national distributors, and registered license users are also able to upgrade their version of a product to include any modifications to the version during this phase.

Extended phase: 1 year (4th year after release for sale)

1. Future School product licenses are not available for purchase;
2. Distributor assisted support is available from the distributor from whom the product license is purchased;
3. Website support is available from national distributors and all registered license users, except educational volume licensing agreement customers, are able to upgrade their version of a product to include any modifications to the version during this phase.

Final life cycle phase: 1 year (5th year after release for sale)

1. Future School product licenses are not available for purchase;
2. Distributor assisted support is no longer available, unless specifically agreed to in writing by the distributor from whom the product licence is purchased;
3. Website support is available from national distributors, and provides for registered licence users to request limited electronic assistance. Upgrades or modifications to a version are not available during or after this phase.
(http://www.futureschool.com/prodlifecycle.html)

2009-12-28T22:18:00.000-08:00

Critical Success Factor

Critical Success Factor (CSF) is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

A plan should be implemented that considers a platform for growth and profits as well as takes into consideration the following critical success factors:

* Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
* Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
* Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
* Quality: How good is your product and service?
* Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
* Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
* Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
* Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
* Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

Key success factors generally include exceptional management of several of the following:

* Product design
* Market segmentation
* Distribution and promotion
* Pricing
* Financing
* Securing of key personnel
* Research and development
* Production
* Servicing
* Maintenance of quality/value
* Securing key suppliers
* New product development
* Good distribution
* Effective advertising
* Innovative response to customer needs
* Consumer loyalty
* Linkage of technology to market demand
* Link marketing to production
* Investment in growth markets
* Unique positioning advantage
* Strong brand image and awareness
* Prevention of price wars
* High product quality
* Patent protection
* Low product cost
* Large marketing resource budget
* Marketing research quality
* Information system power
* Analytic support capability
* Develop human resources
* Attract the best personnel
* Managerial ability and experience
* Quick decision and action capability
* Organizational effectiveness
* Learning systematically from past strategies
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor)

The success of a Knowledge Management initiative depends on many factors, some within our control, some not. Typically, critical success factors can be categorized into five primary categories:

1. leadership;
2. culture;
3. structure, roles, and responsibilities;
4. information technology infrastructure; and
5. measurement.

Leadership
Leadership plays a key role in ensuring success in almost any initiative within an organization. Its impact on KM is even more pronounced because this is a relatively new discipline. Nothing makes greater impact on an organization than when leaders model the behavior they are trying to promote among employees. The CEO at Buckman Laboratories, a chemicals company, champions the cause for KM within the organization and personally reviews submissions to its knowledge bank. When he notices that a particular employee has not had been active within the system, he sends a message that reads: "Dear associate, you haven't been sharing knowledge. How can we help you? All the best, Bob."
Several other best-practice organizations have demonstrated this commitment to KM. At the World Bank, the president's support led to the creation of an infrastructure that promoted and supported the growth of communities of practice (CoPs) not only throughout the organization, but also around the globe. Today, the World Bank has sustained its KM initiative through its CoPs. Its knowledge managers constantly search for new approaches to knowledge sharing.
Although leadership plays a critical role in the success of the KM initiative, the "culture" factor can be even more important to the success of Knowledge Managment.

Culture
Culture is the combination of shared history, expectations, unwritten rules, and social customs that compel behaviors. It is the set of underlying beliefs that, while rarely exactly articulated, are always there to influence the perception of actions and communications of all employees.
Cultural issues concerning KM initiatives usually arise due to the following factors:
• Lack of time - The goal is not to encourage the employees to work more, but to work more effectively. The processes, technologies, and roles designed during a KM initiative must save employees' time, not burden them with more work. This can only be accomplished if the employees' work patterns are accounted for during the initial design and planning phase of the initiative.
• Unconnected reward systems - Organizations have to maintain a balance between intrinsic and explicit rewards in order to encourage employee behavior. The most effective use of explicit rewards has been to encourage sharing at the onset of a KM initiative. If the attendees don't find value in either the meetings or the information on the system, providing incentives will not sustain their participation. People share because they want to, they like to see their expertise being used, and they like being respected by their peers.
• Lack of common perspectives - Sharing must be inspired by a common vision. The people affected by the new process or technology must all buy in to this vision and believe it will work.
• No formal communication - When designing and implementing KM initiatives, ensure that employees and customers know about the changes occurring in your organization. It has been hypothesized that a person needs to hear the same message at least three times before it registers in the brain. Hence, communication should be pervasive. While implementing KM within your organization, market yourself. Make sure everyone knows what you are attempting to do, and build anticipation for the launch.
If your organization naturally has a tendency to share knowledge, enabling knowledge sharing becomes a little easier. If your organization harbors a knowledge-hoarding culture, don't give in to it. Remove negative consequences to sharing. People want to share their knowledge. They want others to know they are knowledgeable. Break down some of the existing barriers to knowledge sharing, and give people the tools and environment they need. By designing KM initiatives around your culture, you will be initiating a cultural change.

Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities
Although there are many ways that organizations structure the governance of their KM initiatives, APQC has found common elements among best-practice partner organizations: a steering committee, a central KM support group, and stewards/owners throughout the organization who are responsible for KM. It is a combination of a centralized and decentralized approach.
The steering committee usually consists of executives at the top level. They promote the concept and provide guidance, direction, and support. The central KM group is typically made up of three to four people who provide the initial support for projects or initiatives, which are usually handed over to the business owners once they are implemented. The central group usually consists of people with advanced project management, facilitation, and communication skills. The stewards, or owners, are responsible for knowledge sharing and acquisition within the business units. Like the core KM group, the stewards are change agents for the organization. They model and teach employees the principles of knowledge sharing using a common vocabulary. All of these participants work as a team to prevent a silo mentality and incorporate resistant employees in the process.
Although the structure is put in place to establish ownership and accountability, if there is no overall ownership of knowledge and learning within the organization and the leadership does not "walk the talk," it will be difficult to sustain any sharing behavior.

sharing using a common vocabulary. All of these participants work as a team to prevent a silo mentality and incorporate resistant employees in the process.
Although the structure is put in place to establish ownership and accountability, if there is no overall ownership of knowledge and learning within the organization and the leadership does not "walk the talk," it will be difficult to sustain any sharing behavior.

Measurement
Most people fear measurement because they see it as synonymous with ROI, and they are not sure how to link KM efforts to ROI. Although the ultimate goal of measuring the effectiveness of a KM initiative is to determine some type of ROI, there are many intervening variables that also affect the outcomes.
Because many variables may affect an outcome, it is important to correlate KM activities with business outcomes, while not claiming a pure cause-and-effect relationship. Increased sales may be a result not only of the sales representatives having more information, but also of the market turning, a competitor closing down, or prices dropping 10 percent. Due to the inability to completely isolate knowledge-sharing results, tracking the correlations over time is important There is a final imperative concerning critical success factors, which transcends KM and applies to all interactions: Listen! Listen to your users, customers, and managers-whichever audience for which you are designing. They will tell you how you can meet their needs and have a successful KM initiative.

(http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Critical_Success_Factors_of_KM.pdf)

..organizational change..

2009-12-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Significant organizational change occurs, for example, when an organization changes its overall strategy for success, adds or removes a major section or practice, and/or wants to change the very nature by which it operates. It also occurs when an organization evolves through various life cycles, just like people must successfully evolve through life cycles. For organizations to develop, they often must undergo significant change at various points in their development. That's why the topic of organizational change and development has become widespread in communications about business, organizations, leadership and management.

Leaders and managers continually make efforts to accomplish successful and significant change -- it's inherent in their jobs. Some are very good at this effort (probably more than we realize), while others continually struggle and fail. That's often the difference between people who thrive in their roles and those that get shuttled around from job to job, ultimately settling into a role where they're frustrated and ineffective. There are many schools with educational programs about organizations, business, leadership and management. Unfortunately, there still are not enough schools with programs about how to analyze organizations, identify critically important priorities to address (such as systemic problems or exciting visions for change) and then undertake successful and significant change to address those priorities. This Library topic aims to improve that situation.
(http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm)

To really understand organizational change and begin guiding successful change efforts, the change agent should have at least a broad understanding of the context of the change effort. This includes understanding the basic systems and structures in organizations, including their typical terms and roles. This requirement applies to the understanding of leadership and management of the organizations, as well. That is why graduate courses in business often initially include a course or some discussion on organizational theory. This topic includes several links to help you gain this broad understanding.

Here is the article I have chosen to read:

"Begin at the beginning in organizational change

David Chaudron, PhD

Perhaps the most asked but least answered question in business today is “What can we do to make our business survive and grow?” The world is rapidly changing into something too hard to easily predict, with a hundred opportunities and pitfalls passing by every moment.

To add to this confusion, there are hundreds, if not thousands of techniques, solutions and methods that claim to help business improve productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. A company President, CEO or business owner has so many choices in these buzzwords, whether they be called Total Quality Management, Customer Satisfaction, Re-engineering or Teambuilding. They are like new shoppers in a giant grocery store: They are hungry, but there are so many brands, sizes and varieties you don’t know what to buy.

In response to this confusion, many do nothing, often afraid of making the wrong choices. Others change the techniques they use every few months, using the “program du’jeur” method of organizational change, otherwise known as MBS (Management by Best Seller). Neither of these responses help the organization in the long run. Changing nothing will produce nothing. Implementing a different buzzword (Total Quality, Just in Time, Re-engineering, etc.) every few months often creates a “whipsaw” effect that causes mass confusion among your employees. These buzzwords are often a hammer in search of a nail, techniques applied with no clear focus as to the why, expected results or return on investment.

One of the organizations we consulted with started on this path. Senior management proclaimed in a memo that Total Quality should be a way of life. One senior vice president declared that he wanted 25% of his organization using Total Quality tools within a year. This caused tremendous excitement in the organization, However, the follow-through was delayed, occasionally inappropriate and sometimes not there. Many employee became discouraged with the process and considered it just another management fad. With the next business downturn, virtually all training had stopped and little enthusiasm was left.

Other organizations clearly focus on technical problems and on improving what they had. They are initially successful, but become victims of their own success. I call this an improved, planned incremental approach. Their initial quality improvement teams may be so successful they rapidly create more teams, without the qualitative organization-wide changes (re-engineering) necessary to sustain a permanent effort.

One organization we worked with had over 70 quality improvement teams in a plan with only 300 employees. They had shown little results after their first successes, and asked us what their next steps should be. We suggested the union’s leadership in their efforts, look at restructuring their organization along more product-focused lines, and possibly start profit sharing. They were not interested in taking any of these actions. A few months later, its parent company shut down the site, partly because of its poor productivity.

Organizations need to move beyond the buzzwords into deciding what actions they need to perform that will help them grow and develop. In response to this problem, this article will provide you a framework for coping with organizational change independent of buzzwords or the latest management fad. Organizations must first decide on the framework their organizational change long before they choose a buzzword to implement.

The major decisions

Instead of grasping for the latest technique, I suggest instead that organizations should go through a formal decision-making process that has four major components:

bullet Levels, goals and strategies
bullet Measurement system
bullet Sequence of steps
bullet Implementation and organizational change
The levels of organizational change
Perhaps the most difficult decision to make is at what "level" to start. There are four levels of organizational change:

shaping and anticipating the future (level 1)
defining what business(es) to be in and their "core competencies” (level 2)
reengineering processes (level 3)
incrementally improving processes (level 4)

First let's describe these levels, and then under what circumstances a business should use them.

Level 1- shaping and anticipating the future
At this level, organizations start out with few assumptions about the business itself, what it is "good" at, and what the future will be like.

Management generates alternate "scenarios" of the future, defines opportunities based on these possible futures, assesses its strengths and weaknesses in these scenarios changes its mission, measurement system etc. More information on this is in the next article, "Moving from the Future to your Strategy."

Level 2 - defining what business(es) to be in and their "Core Competencies
Many attempts at strategic planning start at this level, either assuming that 1) the future will be like the past or at least predictable; 2) the future is embodied in the CEO's "vision for the future"; or 3) management doesn't know where else to start; 4) management is too afraid to start at level 1 because of the changes needed to really meet future requirements; or 5) the only mandate they have is to refine what mission already exists.

After a mission has been defined and a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis is completed, an organization can then define its measures, goals, strategies, etc. More information on this is in the next article, "Moving from the Future to your Strategy."

Level 3 - Reengineering (Structurally Changing) Your Processes
Either as an aftermath or consequence of level one or two work or as an independent action, level three work focuses on fundamentally changing how work is accomplished. Rather than focus on modest improvements, reengineering focuses on making major structural changes to everyday with the goal of substantially improving productivity, efficiency, quality or customer satisfaction. To read more about level 3 organizational changes, please see "A Tale of Three Villages."

Level 4 - Incrementally Changing your Processes
Level 4 organizational changes are focusing in making many small changes to existing work processes. Oftentimes organizations put in considerable effort into getting every employee focused on making these small changes, often with considerable effect. Unfortunately, making improvements on how a buggy whip for horse-drawn carriages is made will rarely come up with the idea that buggy whips are no longer necessary because cars have been invented. To read more about level 4 organizational changes and how it compares to level 3, please see "A Tale of Three Villages."

One organization we consulted with has had a more positive experience with the incremental approach. We trained an internal facilitator, helped them deliver training in a just-in-time fashion, and had them focus on specific technical problems. The teams management formed reduced initial quality defects by 48%.

The disadvantages of such an incremental approach include avoiding structural, system-wide problems, and assumes existing processes need modest improvement. In addition, using incremental approaches can be frustrating to employees and management if (pick a buzzword) does not catch on in the organization. As a result of these disadvantages, many organizations experience a high risk of failure in the long run.

What level do I choose?
These levels have much of the same goals: increasing customer satisfaction, doing things right the first time, greater employee productivity, etc. Despite these similarities, they differ substantially in the methods they use to achieve these goals.

Levels one through three, on one hand, focuses on "big picture" elements such as analysis of the marketplace, out-sourcing, purchase/sale of subsidiaries, truly out-of-the box" thinking and substantial change in the management and support systems of the company . In my experience, companies that use these methods tend to have a high need for change, risk-tolerant management, relatively few constraints and have substantial consensus among its management on what to do. Types of industries include those whose environment requires rapid adaptation to fast-moving events: electronics, information systems and telecommunication industries, for example.

Companies using mostly incremental tools (level 4) have management that perceives only a modest need for change, is relatively risk-avoidant, has many constraints on its actions and only has a modest consensus among themselves on what to do. Instead of focusing on new opportunities, they wish to hone and clarify what they already do. Types of industries that often use these methods include the military, aerospace, and until recently, health care organizations. Those organizations whose strategic planning solely focuses on refining an existing mission statement and communicating the paragraph also fall into using incremental (level 4) methods.

When discussing the continuum of structural vs. incremental change, its important to realize that what labels companies use are not important here. One must carefully observe their actions. Many companies have slogans, "glitter" recognition programs and large budgets to provide "awareness" training in the buzzword they are attempting to implement. The key, however, is to note what changes they are really making. If management is mostly filling training slots with disinterested workers and forming a few process improvement teams, they are using level three methods. If they are considering changes in business lines, re-organizing by customer instead of by function, or making major changes in how the everyday employee is being paid, they are using level 3 methods.

Unfortunately, all of this discussion hinges in management's belief about how much change is necessary. This belief often hinges on their often unassessed beliefs of 1) how well the organization performs compared to other organizations (a lack of benchmarking); and 2) what the future will be.

As a result, my recommendation is that organizations conduct scenario/strategic planning exercises (level 1) anyway, even if they have already decided that level 4 (incremental) methods will suffice to solve their problems. This way management can be aware of the limitations of the lower-level methods they are using and realize when it is best to abandon these lower-level methods for something more substantive.

Based on this exercise, comparison of existing internal processes with world-class examples (benchmarking) and market analysis, management may come to realize how much change is necessary. The greater the gap between what the organization needs to be and how it currently operations and what businesses it is in, the more it suggests that greater change is necessary, and greater restructuring is necessary.

This decision is very important. IBM in the mid 1980’s felt that the future would be much like the past and a result didn't have to change much. They did not realize how much microcomputers would replace the functions of their bread-and-butter business, the mainframe. The net result was tens of thousands of people were laid off, with the company suffering the first losses in its history.

Goals
Based on whatever level work you are doing, the opportunities that are found need to be evaluated to determine which of them best suit the existing and future capabilities of the organization and provide the most "bang for the buck" in terms of improvement in your measures of success. In addition, goals need to have the resources and management determination to see to their success.

Goals also need to be SMART, that is:

Specific - concrete action, step-by-step actions needed to make the goal succeed

Measurable - observable results from the goal's accomplishment

Attainable - The goal is both possible and is done at the right time with sufficient attention and resources

Realistic- The probability of success is good, given the resources and attention given it.

Time-bound- The goal is achieved within a specified period of time in a way that takes advantage of the opportunity before it passes you by.

Some examples include:

bullet “We will expand into the polystyrene market within the next five years and achieve 20% market share”
bullet We will decrease the time from research to customer delivery by 50% within two years
bullet We will increase the quality of our largest product by 20% in three years.
Strategies
Where goals focus on what, strategies focus on how. Some examples include:

bullet “We will re-engineer our research and development process”
bullet “We will evaluate and improve our sales and marketing department”
bullet We will conduct a SWOT analysis and then define our core competencies

Additional examples of strategies are included in the "Moving from the Future to your Strategy" chapter.

Wait a second. Aren't goals and strategies really the same. They are in one sense as they both need to be SMART. As what you might guess, the goals of a level are achieved by creating strategies at the lower levels.

The Measurement System
Without measures of success, the organization does not know if it has succeeded in its efforts. Someone once said, “What gets measured gets improved.” Someone else said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

For more information on measurement systems and their place in organizational change, please see the "Balanced Scorecard" article, along with a number of articles where employee surveys are used.

Implementation and Organizational Change
The success of any organizational change effort can be summed into an equation:

Success = Measurement X Method X Control X Focused Persistence X Consensus

Like any equation with multiplication, a high value of one variable can compensate for lower levels on other variables. Also like any equation with multiplication, if one variable equals 0, the result is zero.

On employee involvement
Some organizations involve employees right from the start, where they have significant influence in the strategic plan of the organization. This kind of involvement tends to reduce employees’ resistance, which is always a very important factor in the success of any organizational change. Such organizations as Eaton, Eastman Chemical and Rohm and Haas have used such an approach.

Such employee involvement, however, might also be threatening to management’s traditional power. Some organizations decide employee involvement will be limited to implementing the strategic decisions management makes, or further limit involvement to purely task-focused teams working on technical problems. Many aerospace organizations have used this approach.

Focused persistence, good project management and the sequence of implementation
The sequence of implementation is also an important factor. There are four basic options, with many variations of them. The first involves the entire organization from the start, with the whole organization intensively working at once on making the change. Ford Motor Company is currently restructuring its entire organization, moving from planning to implementation in nine months.

Another option is a more relaxed approach, in which divisions or business units of the organization go at their own pace. This option can often become an incremental approach like the first or second village. Many conglomerates or other companies with diverse operations try this approach.

A third option is similar to the previous one, with the focus being on individual business units doing the implementation. In this case, however, business units implement roughly the same things in roughly the same time schedule. Unisys, the computer company, is using this method on some of its organizational change efforts.

A fourth option is to create a pilot project in one division or business unit, learn from its mistakes, and then apply those lessons to the rest of the organization. Examples of this option include the Saturn car facility at General Motors and the Enfield plant of Digital Equipment Corporation. It’s important to note here that creating pilot projects is a high-risk business. In both cases, the lessons learned from these pilot projects have not gained widespread acceptance in their parent companies due to their heavily ingrained cultures."
(http://www.organizedchange.com/decide.htm)

Spectrum of Organization Change

Costs and Benefits:

Tangible benefits
Increased productivity - It increases the production of services or products
Low operating cost - It is cheap or less expensive,when it comes to doing the project or change
Reduced work force - It will need a less or lesser people or employee
Lower computer expenses - It only needs a minimum maintainance
Lower vendor cost - It would be cheaper ot is less expensive when it comes to selling or ordering
Lower clerical/professional costs - There will be no need of people that are excellent on the job
Reduced growth of expenses - It will cause the firm to release a lesser amount of money

There is more to the value of an information system than just the tangible, evident benefits. These should be presented to the senior management as well.

Automation: Using technology to perform tasks efficiently/effectively

Automation is the use of control systems (such as numerical control, programmable logic control, and other industrial control systems), in concert with other applications of information technology (such as computer-aided technologies [CAD, CAM, CAx]), to control industrial machinery and processes, reducing the need for human intervention. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization. Whereas mechanization provided human operators with machinery to assist them with the muscular requirements of work, automation greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirements as well. Processes and systems can also be automated.

Automation plays an increasingly important role in the global economy and in daily experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of applications and human activities.

Many roles for humans in industrial processes presently lie beyond the scope of automation. Human-level pattern recognition, language recognition, and language production ability are well beyond the capabilities of modern mechanical and computer systems. Tasks requiring subjective assessment or synthesis of complex sensory data, such as scents and sounds, as well as high-level tasks such as strategic planning, currently require human expertise. In many cases, the use of humans is more cost-effective than mechanical approaches even where automation of industrial tasks is possible.

Specialized hardened computers, referred to as programmable logic controllers (PLCs), are frequently used to synchronize the flow of inputs from (physical) sensors and events with the flow of outputs to actuators and events. This leads to precisely controlled actions that permit a tight control of almost any industrial process.

Human-machine interfaces (HMI) or computer human interfaces (CHI), formerly known as man-machine interfaces, are usually employed to communicate with PLCs and other computers, such as entering and monitoring temperatures or pressures for further automated control or emergency response. Service personnel who monitor and control these interfaces are often referred to as stationary engineers.

Automation has had a notable impact in a wide range of highly visible industries beyond manufacturing. Once-ubiquitous telephone operators have been replaced largely by automated telephone switchboards and answering machines. Medical processes such as primary screening in electrocardiography or radiography and laboratory analysis of human genes, sera, cells, and tissues are carried out at much greater speed and accuracy by automated systems. Automated teller machines have reduced the need for bank visits to obtain cash and carry out transactions. In general, automation has been responsible for the shift in the world economy from agrarian to industrial in the 19th century and from industrial to services in the 20th century.[3]

The widespread impact of industrial automation raises social issues, among them its impact on employment. Historical concerns about the effects of automation date back to the beginning of the industrial revolution, when a social movement of English textile machine operators in the early 1800s known as the Luddites protested against Jacquard's automated weaving looms[4] — often by destroying such textile machines— that they felt threatened their jobs. One author made the following case. When automation was first introduced, it caused widespread fear. It was thought that the displacement of human operators by computerized systems would lead to severe unemployment.

Critics of automation contend that increased industrial automation causes increased unemployment; this was a pressing concern during the 1980s. One argument claims that this has happened invisibly in recent years, as the fact that many manufacturing jobs left the United States during the early 1990s was offset by a one-time massive increase in IT jobs at the same time. Some authors argue that the opposite has often been true, and that automation has led to higher employment. Under this point of view, the freeing up of the labor force has allowed more people to enter higher skilled managerial as well as specialized consultant/contractor jobs (like cryptographers), which are typically higher paying. One odd side effect of this shift is that "unskilled labor" is in higher demand in many first-world nations, because fewer people are available to fill such jobs.

At first glance, automation might appear to devalue labor through its replacement with less-expensive machines; however, the overall effect of this on the workforce as a whole remains unclear.[citation needed] Today automation of the workforce is quite advanced, and continues to advance increasingly more rapidly throughout the world and is encroaching on ever more skilled jobs, yet during the same period the general well-being and quality of life of most people in the world (where political factors have not muddied the picture) have improved dramatically. What role automation has played in these changes has not been well studied.

Advantages:

* Replacing human operators in tedious tasks.
* Replacing humans in tasks that should be done in dangerous environments (i.e. fire, space, volcanoes, nuclear facilities, under the water, etc)
* Making tasks that are beyond the human capabilities such as handling too heavy loads, too large objects, too hot or too cold substances or the requirement to make things too fast or too slow.
* Economy improvement. Sometimes and some kinds of automation implies improves in economy of enterprises, society or most of humankind. For example, when an enterprise that has invested in automation technology recovers its investment; when a state or country increases its income due to automation like Germany or Japan in the 20th Century or when the humankind can use the internet which in turn use satellites and other automated engines.

Disadvantages:

* Technology limits. Current technology is unable to automate all the desired tasks.
* Unpredictable development costs. The research and development cost of automating a process is difficult to predict accurately beforehand. Since this cost can have a large impact on profitability, it's possible to finish automating a process only to discover that there's no economic advantage in doing so.
* Initial costs are relatively high. The automation of a new product required a huge initial investment in comparison with the unit cost of the product, although the cost of automation is spread in many product batches. The automation of a plant required a great initial investment too, although this cost is spread in the products to be produced.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation)

Rationalization of Procedures: Streamline SOPs and eliminate bottlenecks

Business Reengineering: Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, service and maximize benefits of technology

This develops the business vision and process its objectives, which are

Identify process to be redesigned - looking for the systems that should changed or modify
Understand, measure performance of existing processes - Study the capacity of each existing systems
Identify opportunities for applying information technology - Find ways on how to implement information system in order to provide good outcome for the firm or organization
Build prototype of new process

Paradigm Shift: A new perspective on things

Paradigm is a complete mental model of how complex a system functions. It involves rethinking the nature of the business, the organization. It is a complete reconception or change of how the system should work.

Information systems are of strategic importance of any company. They are constantly developed, redesigned, modernized. This should be a controlled process managed by top management, deployed by those that know the technologies. IT specailists’ opportunity to advance in a company or in any organization.
(http://www.zturk.com/edu/zagreb/podiplomski/slides/02-1-short-IT-strategies.pdf)

..Process Models..

2009-12-20T21:49:00.002-08:00

Systems development models, also called process models are The process model is typically used in structured analysis and design methods. Also called a data flow diagram (DFD), it shows the flow of information through a system. Each process transforms inputs into outputs.

The model generally starts with a context diagram showing the system as a single process connected to external entities outside of the system boundary. This process explodes to a lower level DFD that divides the system into smaller parts and balances the flow of information between parent and child diagrams. Many diagram levels may be needed to express a complex system. Primitive processes, those that don't explode to a child diagram, are usually described in a connected textual specification.
(http://www.excelsoftware.com/processmodel.html)

There are various of systems development models, some of them are:

Waterfall Model

The waterfall model is a sequential software development process, in which progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of Conception, Initiation, Analysis, Design (validation), Construction, Testing and maintenance.

The Waterfall Model is the earliest method of structured system development. Although it has come under attack in recent years for being too rigid and unrealistic when it comes to quickly meeting customer's needs, the Waterfall Model is still widely used. It is attributed with providing the theoretical basis for other Process Models, because it most closely resembles a "generic" model for software development.

The Waterfall Model consists of the following steps:

*
System Conceptualization. System Conceptualization refers to the consideration of all aspects of the targeted business function or process, with the goals of determining how each of those aspects relates with one another, and which aspects will be incorporated into the system.
*
Systems Analysis. This step refers to the gathering of system requirements, with the goal of determining how these requirements will be accommodated in the system. Extensive communication between the customer and the developer is essential.
*
System Design. Once the requirements have been collected and analyzed, it is necessary to identify in detail how the system will be constructed to perform necessary tasks. More specifically, the System Design phase is focused on the data requirements (what information will be processed in the system?), the software construction (how will the application be constructed?), and the interface construction (what will the system look like? What standards will be followed?).
*
Coding. Also known as programming, this step involves the creation of the system software. Requirements and systems specifications from the System Design step are translated into machine readable computer code.
*
Testing. As the software is created and added to the developing system, testing is performed to ensure that it is working correctly and efficiently. Testing is generally focused on two areas: internal efficiency and external effectiveness. The goal of external effectiveness testing is to verify that the software is functioning according to system design, and that it is performing all necessary functions or sub-functions. The goal of internal testing is to make sure that the computer code is efficient, standardized, and well documented. Testing can be a labor-intensive process, due to its iterative nature.
(http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/reports/survey_of_sysdev?chapter=5)

The waterfall development model has its origins in the manufacturing and construction industries; highly structured physical environments in which after-the-fact changes are prohibitively costly, if not impossible. Since no formal software development methodologies existed at the time, this hardware-oriented model was simply adapted for software development.

The first formal description of the waterfall model is often cited to be an article published in 1970 by Winston W. Royce (1929–1995),[1] although Royce did not use the term "waterfall" in this article. Royce was presenting this model as an example of a flawed, non-working model (Royce 1970). This is in fact the way the term has generally been used in writing about software development—as a way to criticize a commonly used software practice.

In Royce's original Waterfall model, the following phases are followed in order:

1. Requirements specification
2. Design
3. Construction (AKA implementation or coding)
4. Integration
5. Testing and debugging (AKA Validation)
6. Installation
7. Maintenance

To follow the waterfall model, one proceeds from one phase to the next in a purely sequential manner. For example, one first completes requirements specification, which are set in stone. When the requirements are fully completed, one proceeds to design. The software in question is designed and a blueprint is drawn for implementers (coders) to follow — this design should be a plan for implementing the requirements given. When the design is fully completed, an implementation of that design is made by coders. Towards the later stages of this implementation phase, separate software components produced are combined to introduce new functionality and reduced risk through the removal of errors.

Thus the waterfall model maintains that one should move to a phase only when its preceding phase is completed and perfected. However, there are various modified waterfall models (including Royce's final model) that may include slight or major variations upon this process.

Advantages
Time spent early in the software production cycle can lead to greater economy at later stages. It has been shown that a bug found in the early stages (such as requirements specification or design) is cheaper in terms of money, effort and time, to fix than the same bug found later on in the process. ([McConnell 1996], p. 72, estimates that "a requirements defect that is left undetected until construction or maintenance will cost 50 to 200 times as much to fix as it would have cost to fix at requirements time.") To take an extreme example, if a program design turns out to be impossible to implement, it is easier to fix the design at the design stage than to realize months later, when program components are being integrated, that all the work done so far has to be scrapped because of a broken design.

This is the central idea behind Big Design Up Front (BDUF) and the waterfall model - time spent early on making sure that requirements and design are absolutely correct will save you much time and effort later. Thus, the thinking of those who follow the waterfall process goes, one should make sure that each phase is 100% complete and absolutely correct before proceeding to the next phase of program creation. Program requirements should be set in stone before design is started (otherwise work put into a design based on incorrect requirements is wasted); the program's design should be perfect before people begin work on implementing the design (otherwise they are implementing the wrong design and their work is wasted), etc.

A further argument for the waterfall model is that it places emphasis on documentation (such as requirements documents and design documents) as well as source code. In less designed and documented methodologies, should team members leave, much knowledge is lost and may be difficult for a project to recover from. Should a fully working design document be present (as is the intent of Big Design Up Front and the waterfall model) new team members or even entirely new teams should be able to familiarize themselves by reading the documents.

As well as the above, some prefer the waterfall model for its simple approach and argue that it is more disciplined. Rather than what the waterfall adherent sees as chaos, the waterfall model provides a structured approach; the model itself progresses linearly through discrete, easily understandable and explainable phases and thus is easy to understand; it also provides easily markable milestones in the development process. It is perhaps for this reason that the waterfall model is used as a beginning example of a development model in many software engineering texts and courses.

It is argued that the waterfall model and Big Design up Front in general can be suited to software projects which are stable (especially those projects with unchanging requirements, such as with shrink wrap software) and where it is possible and likely that designers will be able to fully predict problem areas of the system and produce a correct design before implementation is started. The waterfall model also requires that implementers follow the well made, complete design accurately, ensuring that the integration of the system proceeds smoothly.

Disadvantages
The waterfall model is argued by many to be a bad idea in practice. This is mainly because of their belief that it is impossible for any non-trivial project to get one phase of a software product's lifecycle perfected, before moving on to the next phases and learning from them.

For example, clients may not be aware of exactly what requirements they need before reviewing a working prototype and commenting on it; they may change their requirements constantly. Designers and programmers may have little control over this. If clients change their requirements after the design is finalized, the design must be modified to accommodate the new requirements. This effectively means invalidating a good deal of working hours, which means increased cost, especially if a large amount of the projects resources has already been invested in Big Design Up Front.

Designers may not be aware of future implementation difficulties when writing a design for an unimplemented software product. That is, it may become clear in the implementation phase that a particular area of program functionality is extraordinarily difficult to implement. If this is the case, it is better to revise the design than to persist in using a design that was made based on faulty predictions and that does not account for the newly discovered problem areas.

Even without such changing of the specification during implementation, there is the option either to start a new project from a scratch, "on a green field", or to continue some already existing, "a brown field" (from construction again). The waterfall methodology can be used for continuous enhancement, even for existing SW, originally from another team. As well as in the case when the system analyst fails to capture the customer requirements correctly, the resulting impacts on the following phases (mainly the coding) still can be tamed by this methodology, in practice: A challenging job for a QA team.

Dr. Winston W. Royce, in "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems"[3], the first paper that describes the waterfall model, also describes the simplest form as "risky and invites failure".

Steve McConnell in Code Complete (a book which criticizes the widespread use of the waterfall model) refers to design as a "wicked problem" — a problem whose requirements and limitations cannot be entirely known before completion. The implication of this is that it is impossible to perfect one phase of software development, thus it is impossible if using the waterfall model to move on to the next phase.

David Parnas, in "A Rational Design Process: How and Why to Fake It", writes:[4]

“Many of the [system's] details only become known to us as we progress in the [system's] implementation. Some of the things that we learn invalidate our design and we must backtrack.”

The idea behind the waterfall model may be "measure twice; cut once", and those opposed to the waterfall model argue that this idea tends to fall apart when the problem being measured is constantly changing due to requirement modifications and new realizations about the problem itself. As a solution can serve some "investment of man-time", ordering some experienced developer to spend time on refactoring, to consolidate the SW back together. Another approach is to prevent these needs by a predicting design, targeting modularity with interfaces.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model)

The stages of "The Waterfall Model" are:
Requirement Analysis & Definition: All possible requirements of the system to be developed are captured in this phase. Requirements are set of functions and constraints that the end-user (who will be using the system) expects from the system. The requirements are gathered from the end-user by consultation, these requirements are analyzed for their validity and the possibility of incorporating the requirements in the system to be development is also studied. Finally, a Requirement Specification document is created which serves the purpose of guideline for the next phase of the model.

System & Software Design: Before a starting for actual coding, it is highly important to understand what we are going to create and what it should look like? The requirement specifications from first phase are studied in this phase and system design is prepared. System Design helps in specifying hardware and system requirements and also helps in defining overall system architecture. The system design specifications serve as input for the next phase of the model.

Implementation & Unit Testing: On receiving system design documents, the work is divided in modules/units and actual coding is started. The system is first developed in small programs called units, which are integrated in the next phase. Each unit is developed and tested for its functionality; this is referred to as Unit Testing. Unit testing mainly verifies if the modules/units meet their specifications.

Integration & System Testing: As specified above, the system is first divided in units which are developed and tested for their functions. These units are integrated into a complete system during Integration phase and tested to check if all modules/units coordinate between each other and the system as a whole behaves as per the specifications. After successfully testing the software, it is delivered to the customer.

Operations & Maintenance: This phase of "The Waterfall Model" is virtually never ending phase (Very long). Generally, problems with the system developed (which are not found during the development life cycle) come up after its practical use starts, so the issues related to the system are solved after deployment of the system. Not all the problems come in picture directly but they arise time to time and needs to be solved; hence this process is referred as Maintenance.

There are some disadvantages of the Waterfall Model.
1) As it is very important to gather all possible requirements during the Requirement Gathering and Analysis phase in order to properly design the system, not all requirements are received at once, the requirements from customer goes on getting added to the list even after the end of "Requirement Gathering and Analysis" phase, this affects the system development process and its success in negative aspects.

2) The problems with one phase are never solved completely during that phase and in fact many problems regarding a particular phase arise after the phase is signed off, this results in badly structured system as not all the problems (related to a phase) are solved during the same phase.

3) The project is not partitioned in phases in flexible way.

4) As the requirements of the customer goes on getting added to the list, not all the requirements are fulfilled, this results in development of almost unusable system. These requirements are then met in newer version of the system; this increases the cost of system development.(http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-5-2005-63768.asp)

The waterfall model is a popular version of the systems development life cycle model for software engineering. Often considered the classic approach to the systems development life cycle, the waterfall model describes a development method that is linear and sequential. Waterfall development has distinct goals for each phase of development. Imagine a waterfall on the cliff of a steep mountain. Once the water has flowed over the edge of the cliff and has begun its journey down the side of the mountain, it cannot turn back. It is the same with waterfall development. Once a phase of development is completed, the development proceeds to the next phase and there is no turning back.

The advantage of waterfall development is that it allows for departmentalization and managerial control. A schedule can be set with deadlines for each stage of development and a product can proceed through the development process like a car in a carwash, and theoretically, be delivered on time. Development moves from concept, through design, implementation, testing, installation, troubleshooting, and ends up at operation and maintenance. Each phase of development proceeds in strict order, without any overlapping or iterative steps.

The disadvantage of waterfall development is that it does not allow for much reflection or revision. Once an application is in the testing stage, it is very difficult to go back and change something that was not well-thought out in the concept stage. Alternatives to the waterfall model include joint application development (JAD), rapid application development (RAD), synch and stabilize, build and fix, and the spiral model.
(http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid92_gci519580,00.html)

As from what I have learned from our past interview, the company we adopted discouraged as from using this process model, Waterfall Model, because of some reasons that they believe that will be a very much of a head ache during the project.

Spiral Model

The spiral model is a software development process combining elements of both design and prototyping-in-stages, in an effort to combine advantages of top-down and bottom-up concepts. Also known as the spiral lifecycle model (or spiral development), it is a systems development method (SDM) used in information technology (IT). This model of development combines the features of the prototyping model and the waterfall model. The spiral model is intended for large, expensive and complicated projects.

The spiral model was defined by Barry Boehm in his 1988 article "A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement"[1]. This model was not the first model to discuss iterative development, but it was the first model to explain why the iteration matters.[citation needed]

As originally envisioned, the iterations were typically 6 months to 2 years long. Each phase starts with a design goal and ends with the client (who may be internal) reviewing the progress thus far. Analysis and engineering efforts are applied at each phase of the project, with an eye toward the end goal of the project.

The steps in the spiral model iteration can be generalized as follows:

1. The new system requirements are defined in as much detail as possible. This usually involves interviewing a number of users representing all the external or internal users and other aspects of the existing system.
2. A preliminary design is created for the new system.This phase is the most important part of "Spiral Model". In this phase all possible (and available) alternatives, which can help in developing a cost effective project are analyzed and strategies are decided to use them. This phase has been added specially in order to identify and resolve all the possible risks in the project development. If risks indicate any kind of uncertainty in requirements, prototyping may be used to proceed with the available data and find out possible solution in order to deal with the potential changes in the requirements.
3. A first prototype of the new system is constructed from the preliminary design. This is usually a scaled-down system, and represents an approximation of the characteristics of the final product.
4. A second prototype is evolved by a fourfold procedure:
1. evaluating the first prototype in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, and risks;
2. defining the requirements of the second prototype;
3. planning and designing the second prototype;
4. constructing and testing the second prototype.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_model)

The spiral model is a software development process combining elements of both design and prototyping-in-stages, in an effort to combine advantages of top-down and bottom-up concepts.

The spiral model was defined by Barry Boehm in his article A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement from 1985. This model was not the first model to discuss iterative development, but it was the first model to explain why the iteration matters. As originally envisioned, the iterations were typically 6 months to 2 years long.

Each phase starts with a design goal and ends with the client (who may be internal) reviewing the progress thus far. Analysis and engineering efforts are applied at each phase of the project, with an eye toward the end goal of the project.
Applications

For a typical shrink-wrap application, the spiral model might mean that you have a rough-cut of user elements (without the polished / pretty graphics) as an operable application, add features in phases, and, at some point, add the final graphics.

The Spiral model is used most often in large projects and needs constant review to stay on target. For smaller projects, the concept of agile software development is becoming a viable alternative.

Advantages

* Estimates (i.e. budget, schedule, etc.) get more realistic as work progresses, because important issues are discovered earlier.
* It is more able to cope with the (nearly inevitable) changes that software development generally entails.
* Software engineers (who can get restless with protracted design processes) can get their hands in and start working on a project earlier.
(http://www.selectbs.com/adt/analysis-and-design/what-is-the-spiral-model)

There are four phases in the "Spiral Model" which are: Planning, Evaluation, Risk Analysis and Engineering. These four phases are iteratively followed one after other in order to eliminate all the problems, which were faced in "The Waterfall Model". Iterating the phases helps in understating the problems associated with a phase and dealing with those problems when the same phase is repeated next time, planning and developing strategies to be followed while iterating through the phases. The phases in "Spiral Model" are:

Plan: In this phase, the objectives, alternatives and constraints of the project are determined and are documented. The objectives and other specifications are fixed in order to decide which strategies/approaches to follow during the project life cycle.

Risk Analysis: This phase is the most important part of "Spiral Model". In this phase all possible (and available) alternatives, which can help in developing a cost effective project are analyzed and strategies are decided to use them. This phase has been added specially in order to identify and resolve all the possible risks in the project development. If risks indicate any kind of uncertainty in requirements, prototyping may be used to proceed with the available data and find out possible solution in order to deal with the potential changes in the requirements.

Engineering: In this phase, the actual development of the project is carried out. The output of this phase is passed through all the phases iteratively in order to obtain improvements in the same.

Customer Evaluation: In this phase, developed product is passed on to the customer in order to receive customer’s comments and suggestions which can help in identifying and resolving potential problems/errors in the software developed. This phase is very much similar to TESTING phase.

The process progresses in spiral sense to indicate iterative path followed, progressively more complete software is built as we go on iterating through all four phases. The first iteration in this model is considered to be most important, as in the first iteration almost all possible risk factors, constraints, requirements are identified and in the next iterations all known strategies are used to bring up a complete software system. The radical dimensions indicate evolution of the product towards a complete system.

However, as every system has its own pros and cons, "The Spiral Model" does have its pros and cons too. As this model is developed to overcome the disadvantages of the "Waterfall Model", to follow "Spiral Model", highly skilled people in the area of planning, risk analysis and mitigation, development, customer relation etc. are required. This along with the fact that the process needs to be iterated more than once demands more time and is somehow expensive task.
(http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-13-2005-64082.asp)

The spiral model combines the iterative nature of prototyping with the controlled and systematic aspects of the waterfall model, therein providing the potential for rapid development of incremental versions of the software. In this model the software is developed in a series of incremental releases with the early stages being either paper models or prototypes. Later iterations become increasingly more complete versions of the product.

Depending on the model it may have 3-6 task regions (/framework activities) our case will consider a ‘6-task region’ model.

These regions are:

1.The customer communication task – to establish effective communication between developer and customer.
2. The planning task – to define resources, time lines and other project related information..
3. The risk analysis task – to assess both technical and management risks.
4. The engineering task – to build one or more representations of the application.
5. The construction and release task – to construct, test, install and provide user support (e.g., documentation and training).
6.The customer evaluation task – to obtain customer feedback based on the evaluation of the software representation created during the engineering stage and implemented during the install stage.

The evolutionary process begins at the centre position and moves in a clockwise direction. Each traversal of the spiral typically results in a deliverable. For example, the first and second spiral traversals may result in the production of a product specification and a prototype, respectively. Subsequent traversals may then produce more sophisticated versions of the software.

An important distinction between the spiral model and other software models is the explicit consideration of risk. There are no fixed phases such as specification or design phases in the model and it encompasses other process models. For example, prototyping may be used in one spiral to resolve requirement uncertainties and hence reduce risks. This may then be followed by a conventional waterfall development.

Note that each passage through the planning stage results in an adjustment to the project plan (e.g. cost and schedule are adjusted based on the feedback from the customer, project manager may adjust the number of iterations required to complete the software….)
Each of the regions is populated by a set of work tasks called a task set that are adapted to characteristics of the project to be undertaken. For small projects the number of tasks and their formality is low. Conversely, for large projects the reverse is true.

Advantages of the Spiral Model
The spiral model is a realistic approach to the development of large-scale software products because the software evolves as the process progresses. In addition, the developer and the client better understand and react to risks at each evolutionary level. The model uses prototyping as a risk reduction mechanism and allows for the development of prototypes at any stage of the evolutionary development. It maintains a systematic stepwise approach, like the classic life cycle model, but incorporates it into an iterative framework that more reflect the real world. If employed correctly, this model should reduce risks before they become problematic, as consideration of technical risks are considered at all stages.

Disadvantages of the Spiral Model

It demands considerable risk-assessment expertise. It has not been employed as much proven models (e.g. the WF model) and hence may prove difficult to ‘sell’ to the client (esp. where a contract is involved) that this model is controllable and efficient.
(http://scitec.uwichill.edu.bb/cmp/online/cs22l/spiralmodel.htm)

Rapid Application Development

rapid Application is a software development process that allows usable systems to be built in as little as 60-90 days, often with some compromises.

Rapid Application Development (RAD) refers to a type of software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping. The "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself. The lack of extensive pre-planning generally allows software to be written much faster, and makes it easier to change requirements.

Rapid Application Development is a software development methodology that involves techniques like iterative development and software prototyping. According to Whitten (2004), it is a merger of various structured techniques, especially data-driven Information Engineering, with prototyping techniques to accelerate software systems development.

In Rapid Application Development, structured techniques and prototyping are especially used to define users' requirements and to design the final system. The development process starts with the development of preliminary data models and business process models using structured techniques. In the next stage, requirements are verified using prototyping, eventually to refine the data and process models. These stages are repeated iteratively; further development results in "a combined business requirements and technical design statement to be used for constructing new systems".

RAD approaches may entail compromises in functionality and performance in exchange for enabling faster development and facilitating application maintenance.

Rapid Application Development is a term originally used to describe a software development process introduced by James Martin in 1991. Martin's methodology involves iterative development and the construction of prototypes. More recently, the term and its acronym have come to be used in a broader, generic sense that encompasses a variety of techniques aimed at speeding application development, such as the use of web application frameworks and other types of software frameworks.

Rapid application development was a response to non-agile processes developed in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Structured Systems Analysis and Design Method and other Waterfall models. One problem with previous methodologies was that applications took so long to build that requirements had changed before the system was complete, resulting in inadequate or even unusable systems. Another problem was the assumption that a methodical requirements analysis phase alone would identify all the critical requirements. Ample evidence attests to the fact that this is seldom the case, even for projects with highly experienced professionals at all levels.

he shift from traditional session-based client/server development to open sessionless and collaborative development like Web 2.0 has increased the need for faster iterations through the phases of the SDLC.[2] This, coupled with the growing utilization of open source frameworks and products in core commercial development, has, for many developers, rekindled interest in finding a silver bullet RAD methodology.

Although most RAD methodologies foster software re-use, small team structure and distributed system development, most RAD practitioners recognize that, ultimately, there is no single “rapid” methodology that can provide an order of magnitude improvement over any other development methodology.

All flavors of RAD have the potential for providing a good framework for faster product development with improved code quality, but successful implementation and benefits often hinge on project type, schedule, software release cycle and corporate culture. It may also be of interest that some of the largest software vendors such as Microsoft[3] and IBM[4] do not extensively utilize RAD in the development of their flagship products and for the most part, they still primarily rely on traditional waterfall methodologies with some degree of spiraling.

The following table contains a high-level summary of some of the major flavors of RAD and their relative strengths and weakness.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development)

Some consider it noble to have a method; others consider it noble not to have a method. Not to have a method is bad; to stop entirely at method is still worse. One should at first observe rules severely, then change them in an intelligent way. The aim of possessing method is to seem finally as if one had no method.

The Rapid Application Development methodology was developed to respond to the need to deliver systems very fast. The RAD approach is not appropriate to all projects - an air traffic control system based on RAD would not instill much confidence. Project scope, size and circumstances all determine the success of a RAD approach.

Rapid means Fast

The RAD method has a task list and a work breakdown structure that is designed for speed. However the major difference in RAD is a set of management techniques that are optimized for speed. Among the most important are:

- Prototyping - an approach based on creating a demonstrable result as early as possible and refining that result. The refinement is based on feedback from the business, the eventual users of the system. Prototyping requires an open approach to development, it also requires an emphasis on relationship management and change management. There are dangers involved in starting prototype development too early and in starting it too late.

- Iteration - is a commitment to incremental development based on refinement. Prototyping and iteration go hand in hand.

- Timeboxing - is a management technique that focuses attention on delivery above all else. Under a timebox scope can change but delivery cannot.
(http://www.gantthead.com/content/processes/11306.cfm)

With regards to what we have learned from AMS, this kind of process model is the one they are using, when it comes to building and pursuing a project. They find this process model easy to understand and it is also easier for them to adjust, when using this process model.

..role of systems analyst..

2009-12-20T21:38:00.002-08:00

Our group visited our adopted company, which is AMS Group of Companies, who have given us the honor and permission to conduct an interview with their representative, Mr. Gemrald R. Glibara, MIS head.

But, before going to what we have learned from the interview, let us first define system analysis, system analyst and project manager.

System Analysis
system Analysis has many different meanings. In the sense adopted for the Handbook, systems analysis is an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might otherwise have made. The characteristic attributes of a problem situation where systems analysis is called upon are complexity of the issue and uncertainty of the outcome of any course of action that might reasonably be taken. Systems analysis usually has some combination of the following: identification and re-identification) of objectives, constraints, and alternative courses of action; examination of the probable consequences of the alternatives in terms of costs, benefits, and risks; presentation of the results in a comparative framework so that the decision maker can make an informed choice from among the alternatives. The typical use of systems analysis is to guide decisions on issues such as national or corporate plans and programs, resource use and protection policies, research and development in technology, regional and urban development, educational systems, and other social services. Clearly, the nature of these problems requires an interdisciplinary approach. There are several specific kinds or focuses of systems analysis for which different terms are used: A systems analysis related to public decisions is often referred to as a policy analysis (in the United States the terms are used interchangeably). A systems analysis that concentrates on comparison and ranking of alternatives on basis of their known characteristics is referred to as decision analysis.

Systems analysis is the interdisciplinary part of science, dealing with analysis of sets of interacting entities, the systems, often prior to their automation as computer systems, and the interactions within those systems. This field is closely related to operations research. It is also "an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone, referred to as the decision maker, identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might have otherwise made."

The terms analysis and synthesis come from classical Greek where they mean respectively "to take apart" and "to put together". According to Tom Ritchey (1991) "these terms are used within most modern scientific disciplines -- from mathematics and logic to economy and psychology -- to denote similar investigative procedures. In general, analysis is defined as the procedure by which we break down an intellectual or substantial whole into parts or components. Synthesis is defined as the opposite procedure: to combine separate elements or components in order to form a coherent whole".

The systems discussed within systems analysis can be within any field such as: industrial processes, management, decision making processes, environmental protection processes, etc. The brothers Howard T. Odum and Eugene Odum began applying a systems view to ecology in 1953, building on the work of Raymond Lindeman (1942) and Arthur Tansley (1935).

Systems analysis researchers apply mathematical methodology to the analysis of the systems involved trying to form a detailed overall picture.

The development of a computer-based information system often comprises the use of a systems analyst. When a computer-based information system is developed, systems analysis (according to the Waterfall model) would constitute the following steps:

* The development of a feasibility study, involving determining whether a project is economically, socially, technologically and organisationally feasible.
* Conducting fact-finding measures, designed to ascertain the requirements of the system's end-users. These typically span interviews, questionnaires, or visual observations of work on the existing system.
* Gauging how the end-users would operate the system (in terms of general experience in using computer hardware/software), what the system would be used for etc.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_analysis)

System Analyst
A systems analyst is responsible for researching, planning, coordinating and recommending software and system choices to meet an organization's business requirements. The systems analyst plays a vital role in the systems development process. A successful systems analyst must acquire four skills: analytical, technical, managerial, and interpersonal. Analytical skills enable systems analysts to understand the organization and its functions, which helps him/her to identify opportunities and to analyze and solve problems. Technical skills help systems analysts understand the potential and the limitations of information technology. The systems analyst must be able to work with various programming languages, operating systems, and computer hardware platforms. Management skills help systems analysts manage projects, resources, risk, and change. Interpersonal skills help systems analysts work with end users as well as with analysts, programmers, and other systems professionals.

Because they must write user requests into technical specifications, the systems analysts are the liaisons between vendors and the IT professionals of the organization they represent. They may be responsible for developing cost analysis, design considerations, and implementation time-lines. They may also be responsible for feasibility studies of a computer system before making recommendations to senior management.

A systems analyst performs the following tasks:

* Interact with the customers to know their requirements
* Interact with designers to convey the possible interface of the software
* Interact/guide the coders/developers to keep track of system development
* Perform system testing with sample/live data with the help of testers
* Implement the new system
* Prepare High quality Documentation

Many systems analysts have morphed into business analysts. And, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that "Increasingly, employers are seeking individuals who have a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) with a concentration in information systems."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_analyst)

A system analyst is the person who selects and configures computer systems for an organization or business. His or her job typically begins with determining the intended purpose of the computers. This means the analyst must understand the general objectives of the business, as well as what each individual user's job requires. Once the system analyst has determined the general and specific needs of the business, he can choose appropriate systems that will help accomplish the goals of the business.

When configuring computer systems for a business, the analyst must select both hardware and software. The hardware aspect includes customizing each computer's configuration, such as the processor speed, amount of RAM, hard drive space, video card, and monitor size. It may also involve choosing networking equipment that will link the computers together. The software side includes the operating system and applications that are installed on each system. The software programs each person requires may differ greatly between users, which is why it is important that the system analyst knows the specific needs of each user.

To summarize, the system analyst's job is to choose the most efficient computer solutions for a business, while making sure the systems meet all the company's needs. Therefore, the system analyst must have a solid understanding of computer hardware and software and should keep up-to-date on all the latest technologies. He must also be willing to listen to the constant needs and complaints of the users he builds systems for.(http://www.techterms.com/definition/systemanalyst)

Project Manager
A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project, typically relating to construction industry, architecture, computer networking, telecommunications or software development.

Many other fields in the production, design and service industries also have project managers.

A project manager is the person accountable for accomplishing the stated project objectives. Key project management responsibilities include creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements, and managing the triple constraint for projects, which are; cost, time, and quality (also known as scope).

A project manager is often a client representative and has to determine and implement the exact needs of the client, based on knowledge of the firm they are representing. The ability to adapt to the various internal procedures of the contracting party, and to form close links with the nominated representatives, is essential in ensuring that the key issues of cost, time, quality and above all, client satisfaction, can be realized.

Project management
Project Management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and mutual interaction and tasks of various parties in such a way that reduces the risk of overall failure, maximizes benefits, and restricts costs.

Products and services
Any type of product or service — pharmaceuticals, building construction, vehicles, electronics, computer software, financial services, etc. — may have its implementation overseen by a project manager and its operations by a product manager.

Project tools
The tools, knowledge and techniques for managing projects are often unique to Project Management. For example: work breakdown structures, critical path analysis and earned value management. Understanding and applying the tools and techniques which are generally recognized as good practices are not sufficient alone for effective project management. Effective project management requires that the project manager understands and uses the knowledge and skills from at least four areas of expertise. Examples are PMBOK, Application Area Knowledge: standards and regulations set forth by ISO for project management, General Management Skills and Project Environment Management

Project teams
When recruiting and building an effective team, the manager must consider not only the technical skills of each person, but also the critical roles and chemistry between workers. A project team has mainly three separate components: Project Manager, Core Team and Contracted Team.

Risk
Most of the project management issues that influence a project arise from risk, which in turn arises from uncertainty. The successful project manager focuses on this as his/her main concern and attempts to reduce risk significantly, often by adhering to a policy of open communication, ensuring that project participants can voice their opinions and concerns.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_manager)

Now that we have a better understanding of each terms, we will now discuss the role of Systems Analyst as the Project Manager of a team.

Role of Systems Analyst

The system analyst is the person (or persons) who guides through the development of an information system. In performing these tasks the analyst must always match the information system objectives with the goals of the organization.

Role of System Analyst differs from organization to organization. Most common responsibilities of System Analyst are following
1) System analysis

It includes system's study in order to get facts about business activity. It is about getting information and determining requirements. Here the responsibility includes only requirement determination, not the design of the system.
2) System analysis and design:

Here apart from the analysis work, Analyst is also responsible for the designing of the new system/application.
3) Systems analysis, design, and programming:

Here Analyst is also required to perform as a programmer, where he actually writes the code to implement the design of the proposed application.

Due to the various responsibilities that a system analyst requires to handle, he has to be multifaceted person with varied skills required at various stages of the life cycle. In addition to the technical know-how of the information system development a system analyst should also have the following knowledge.

*

Business knowledge: As the analyst might have to develop any kind of a business system, he should be familiar with the general functioning of all kind of businesses.
*

Interpersonal skills: Such skills are required at various stages of development process for interacting with the users and extracting the requirements out of them
*

Problem solving skills: A system analyst should have enough problem solving skills for defining the alternate solutions to the system and also for the problems occurring at the various stages of the development process.
(http://www.freetutes.com/systemanalysis/role-of-system-analyst.html)

A firms view: Good System Analyst

2009-12-20T03:14:00.001-08:00

Our group decided to have our letter of approval for the interview on the Andres M. Soriano (AMS) Group of Companies. We have conducted the interview with the MIS Head/System Analyst of the Andres M. Soriano (AMS) Group of Companies, Mr. Gemrald Glibara.

But, before going to what we have learned from the interview, let us first define system analysis.

system Analysis has many different meanings. In the sense adopted for the Handbook, systems analysis is an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might otherwise have made. The characteristic attributes of a problem situation where systems analysis is called upon are complexity of the issue and uncertainty of the outcome of any course of action that might reasonably be taken. Systems analysis usually has some combination of the following: identification and re-identification) of objectives, constraintS, and alternative courses of action; examination of the probable consequences of the alternatives in terms of costs, benefits, and risks; presentation of the results in a comparative framework so that the decision maker can make an informed choice from among the alternatives. The typical use of systems analysis is to guide decisions on issues such as national or corporate plans and programs, resource use and protection policies, research and development in technology, regional and urban development, educational systems, and?alth and other social services. Clearly, the nature of these problems requires an interdisciplinary approach. There are several specific kinds or focuses of systems analysis for which different terms are used: A systems analysis related to public decisions is often referred to as a policy analysis (in the United States the terms are used interchangeably). A systems analysis that concentrates on comparison and ranking of alternatives on basis of their known characteristics is referred to as decision analysis.

That part or aspect of systems analysis that concentrates on finding out whether an intended course of action violates any constraints is referred to as feasibility analysis. A systems analysis in which the alternatives are ranked in terms of effectiveness for fixed cost or in terms of cost for equal effectiveness is referred to as cost-effectiveness analysis. cost-benefit effectiveness is a study where for each alternative the time stream of costs and the time stream of benefits (both in monetary units) are discounted (to yield their present values. The comparison and ranking are made in terms of net benefits (benefits minus cost) or the ratio of benefits to costs. In risk-benefit analysis , cost (in monetary units) is assigned to each risk so as to make possible a comparison of the discounted sum of these costs (and of other costs as well) with the discounted sum of benefits that are predicted to result from the decision. The risks considered are usually events whose probability of occurrence is low, but whose adverse consequences would be important (e.g., events such as an earthquake or explosion of a plant). (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/System_analy.html)

Technical, Managerial, Communication Skills of a System Analyst

Technical skills needed by systems analysts include but are not limited to:
1. Computers (PCs, mini, mainframes, etc.)
2. Computer networks (LAN, WAN, VPNs, administration, security, etc.)
3. Operating systems (Unix, Mac/OS, Windows)
4. Data Exchange Protocols (ftp, http, etc.)
5. Programming languages (C++, Java, XML, etc.)
6. Software applications (Office, project managements, etc.)
7. Information systems (databases, MISs, decision support systems)
8. System development tools and environments (such as report generators, office automation tools, etc.)

Managerial skills needed by systems analysts include but are not limited to:
1. resource management effectively managing the project’s resources, including time, equipment, hardware, software, people, money, etc.,
2. project management determining the tasks and resources needed for a project and how they are related to each other,
3. risk management identifying and minimizing risks,
4. change management managing the system’s (organization's) transition from one state to another
3. What kind of communication skills are needed for systems analysts?

Communication skills needed by systems analysts include:

1. clear and effective interpersonal communication, whether written, verbal, or visual, from writing reports to face–to–face conversations, to presentations in front of groups;
2. listening (accepting opinions and ideas from other project team members),
3. group facilitation or formal technical reviews (FTR) skills:
- setting an agenda,
- leading discussions,
- involving all parties in the discussion,
- summarizing ideas,
- keeping discussions on the agenda, etc.
(http://www.interlabs.bradley.edu/NSF_CCLI/Demo/class6/module6/Skills_Pretest_Posttest_Answers.pdf)

In the interview, talk about on how to become a system analyst and what is the frustration does the users and planners encounter during and after the project. During the interview we have come up with a questiopn about thae characteristics of a good System Analyst.

As the interviewee, Mr. Glibara would say, System Analyst should have the following characteristics:

• Able to cope with technological changes
• Ablle to cope with the frustrations with implemented information system
• Able to communicate
• A solution provider with regards to the demand of the client; and
• Has a wide range of thinking and understanding.

We have also asked him about the process model(s) that the department has been using in developing projects.

System Development Cycle (SDLC)

The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), or Software Development Life Cycle in systems engineering and software engineering, is the process of creating or altering systems, and the models and methodologies that people use to develop these systems. The concept generally refers to computer or information systems.

In software engineering the SDLC concept underpins many kinds of software development methodologies. These methodologies form the framework for planning and controlling the creation of an information system: the software development process.

A Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is any logical process used by a systems analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user (stakeholder) ownership. Any SDLC should result in a high quality system that meets or exceeds customer expectations, reaches completion within time and cost estimates, works effectively and efficiently in the current and planned Information Technology infrastructure, and is inexpensive to maintain and cost-effective to enhance.

Computer systems have become more complex and often (especially with the advent of Service-Oriented Architecture) link multiple traditional systems potentially supplied by different software vendors. To manage this level of complexity, a number of systems development life cycle (SDLC) models have been created: "waterfall"; "fountain"; "spiral"; "build and fix"; "rapid prototyping"; "incremental"; and "synchronize and stabilize".[citation needed]

SDLC models can be described along a spectrum of agile to iterative to sequential. Agile methodologies, such as XP and Scrum, focus on light-weight processes which allow for rapid changes along the development cycle. Iterative methodologies, such as Rational Unified Process and Dynamic Systems Development Method, focus on limited project scopes and expanding or improving products by multiple iterations. Sequential or big-design-upfront (BDUF) models, such as Waterfall, focus on complete and correct planning to guide large projects and risks to successful and predictable results.[citation needed]

Some agile and iterative proponents confuse the term SDLC with sequential or "more traditional" processes; however, SDLC is an umbrella term for all methodologies for the design, implementation, and release of software.

In project management a project can be defined both with a project life cycle (PLC) and an SDLC, during which slightly different activities occur. According to Taylor (2004) "the project life cycle encompasses all the activities of the project, while the systems development life cycle focuses on realizing the product requirements".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_Development_Life_Cycle)

The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is a conceptual model used in project management that describes the stages involved in an information system development project, from an initial feasibility study through maintenance of the completed application.
Various SDLC methodologies have been developed to guide the processes involved, including the waterfall model (which was the original SDLC method); rapid application development (RAD); joint application development (JAD); the fountain model; the spiral model; build and fix; and synchronize-and-stabilize. Frequently, several models are combined into some sort of hybrid methodology. Documentation is crucial regardless of the type of model chosen or devised for any application, and is usually done in parallel with the development process. Some methods work better for specific types of projects, but in the final analysis, the most important factor for the success of a project may be how closely the particular plan was followed.

In general, an SDLC methodology follows the following steps:

1. The existing system is evaluated. Deficiencies are identified. This can be done by interviewing users of the system and consulting with support personnel.

2. The new system requirements are defined. In particular, the deficiencies in the existing system must be addressed with specific proposals for improvement.

3. The proposed system is designed. Plans are laid out concerning the physical construction, hardware, operating systems, programming, communications, and security issues.

4. The new system is developed. The new components and programs must be obtained and installed. Users of the system must be trained in its use, and all aspects of performance must be tested. If necessary, adjustments must be made at this stage.

5. The system is put into use. This can be done in various ways. The new system can phased in, according to application or location, and the old system gradually replaced. In some cases, it may be more cost-effective to shut down the old system and implement the new system all at once.

6. Once the new system is up and running for a while, it should be exhaustively evaluated. Maintenance must be kept up rigorously at all times. Users of the system should be kept up-to-date concerning the latest modifications and procedures.
(http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid92_gci755068,00.html)

What is the importance of the design phase of SDLC?

Interpersonal skills
These includes the following:

Communication:

It is an interpersonal quality; the system analyst must have command on English language. Communication is necessary to establish a proper relationship between system analyst and the user.
Communication is need to gather correct information.

Understanding:

This is also an interpersonal quality of the system analyst, understanding includes :
a. Understanding of the objectives of the organization.
b. Understanding the problems of the system.
c. Understanding the information given by the user or employee of the organization.

Selling:

The ideas of the system analyst are his products which he sells to the manager of a particular organization. The system analyst must have not only the ability of creating ideas but also to sell his ideas.

Teaching:

It is also an interpersonal quality. A system analyst must have teaching skills. He must have the ability to teach team members and the users. He has to teach about the new system and also about the proper use of the new system.

New technology:

An analyst is an agent of change, he or she must have the ability to show all the benefits of the candidate system with the new technological advancement, he must knew about.

Another list of skills that analyst must posses to be more effective in any design modeling process:

Analysis and Solution Definition Skills:

•To coordinate with Solution and Demand Management (SDM) team and different business users to manage business requirements and develop clear and workable high level assessments and Solution Design documents fulfilling business needs and in line with Technology and IT ability to deliver.
•To always drive and personally perform research and investigation in all relevant technology and business areas to ensure the Intranet presences is coping with industry standards.
•Translate requirements defined by business analyst into logical, economical and practical system designs.
•Analyzes and Designs system flow and procedures to ensure optimum control and security of data and efficient use of resources
•Develops functional specifications and system design specifications for client engagements.
•Work with vendors and service providers to analyze, design and implement robust, extensible and creative web solutions weighing costs versus benefits.
•Write high and detailed level business requirement documents
•Liaise with business users for requirements gathering, analysis and delivery
•Ensure proper development and implementation of projects by smartly decide on how to implement solutions by assessing all options of in-house development, out-sourcing and/or produced solutions

Technical Skills for Recommendation and Testing:

•Leads testing efforts.
•Ensures issues are identified, tracked, reported on and resolved in a timely manner.
•Works with client personnel to identify required changes.
•Communicates needed changes to development team.
Project Execution:
•Ensure that company’s policies and regulations are thoroughly followed in all projects. This includes but not limited to policies for procurement, vendor relations, legal, financial, human resources, customer service and technology.
•To ensure that the implemented solutions shall operate as planned by ensuring proper and comprehensive coordination with all IT and technology operation teams. This includes but not limited to planning and executions of SLAs, Training, Escalations Matrix & Procedures, Maintenance Windows, etc.
•Assists in enforcement of project deadlines and schedules.
•Takes input from supervisor and appropriately and accurately applies comments/feedback.
•Manages resources in accordance with project schedule.
•Consistently delivers high-quality services to our clients.
•Apply best-practices in Project Management to ensure robust project planning and monitor project execution, shorten the development cycles, and ensure on-time and on-budget delivery based on PMI Methodology
•Manage project change requests by liaising with CR department, business users and vendors to come up with the best solution that would accommodate the CR performance needs (scope, time, quality, cost and customer satisfaction)
•Ensure tight and close management to development and implementation teams including staff, contractors and vendors on-site and off-shore and to proactively avoid delay in the execution by proper follow-up, communication and escalation
•Manage teams including staff, contractors and vendors on-site and off-shore and to proactively avoid delay in the execution by proper follow-up, communication and escalation
•Monitor project performance and adherence deadlines to ensure delivery on time and within cost
•Collaborate and manage project stakeholders, manage expectations and report progress

Communication Skills:

•Assists in the facilitation of team and client meetings.
•Delivers informative, well-organized presentations.
•Understands how to communicate difficult/sensitive information tactfully.
•Communication and interpersonal skills, Ability to foster a co-operative work environment

Technical Understanding Skills:

•Possesses understanding in the areas of application programming, database and system design.
•Understands Internet, Intranet, Extranet and client/server architectures.
•Understands how legacy and web-based systems interface with each other.
•Architect technical web solutions in support of corporate IT/business objectives.
•Review technical designs & specifications and identify website or system deficiencies, and thereby recommending appropriate solutions.
•Support and maintain the existing corporate website and functionalities, including documentation of functional and systems specifications.
•To undertake research and investigation for all development related technologies, techniques, best-practices and forums.

Problem Solving Skills:

•Follow up the defects of the systems and prepare needed development/testing environments (SIT and UAT)
•Exhibits confidence and an extensive knowledge of emerging industry practices when solving business problems.
•Pushes creative thinking beyond the boundaries of existing industry practices and client mindsets.
•Ensure business requirements are met, and user satisfaction
•Process, validate and approve vendors’ invoices and purchase orders
•Monitor project performance and adherence to project plan execution, overall change control

Leadership and Teamwork Skills:

•Ensure that the implemented solutions shall operate as planned by ensuring proper and comprehensive coordination with all IT and technology operation teams as planned in SLAs
•Take proactive and corrective action as necessary and within established guidelines
•Proven leadership capability in managing teams, setting common ground rules and conflict resolution
•Able to support multiple projects concurrently and efficiently
•Acumen and awareness of the latest business and technologies thru research and development

Knowledge, Skills, Experience and Competencies:

•Software development skills
•Analysis & Design skills
•Communication skills
•Conflict Resolution skills
•Presentation skills
•Team Work & cooperation
•Can-Do Attitude
•Team Building & Coaching
•Customer-Centric Thinking
•Result Oriented
•Flexibility
(http://www.blurtit.com/q170760.html)

From what the interviewee says, opinion on how to be a Systems analysts is that he/she must be able to think logically and is a good communicator, meaning he/she must be good in speaking the universal language, which is English. Another thing is, he/she should be able to persuade client with his/her skills. Since they sometimes work in teams, in order to make large projects possible or successful, they must be able to communicate effectively with computer personnel, such as programmers and managers, as well as with users or other staff who may have no technical computer background.

In his view except from him, being the MIS department head, he is, at the same time the System Analyst of the team. But, they lack programmers in their department and he said he can do programming but he find it really hard to be a “one-man-team”. Of course, analysts should be familiar with programming languages and have a broad knowledge and experience with computer systems and technologies, strong problem-solving and analysis skills. AMS is a business-oriented company, that’s why it is required for the employees or staff to have a background on business-related transactions.

A must have skill when you are or want to be a System Analyst is the skill to choose the right and best process model for the project. In AMS, Rapid Application Development.

What is Rapid Application Development?

Rapid Application Development (RAD) refers to a type of software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping. The "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself. The lack of extensive pre-planning generally allows software to be written much faster, and makes it easier to change requirements.

Rapid Application Development is a software development methodology that involves techniques like iterative development and software prototyping. According to Whitten (2004), it is a merger of various structured techniques, especially data-driven Information Engineering, with prototyping techniques to accelerate software systems development.

In Rapid Application Development, structured techniques and prototyping are especially used to define users' requirements and to design the final system. The development process starts with the development of preliminary data models and business process models using structured techniques. In the next stage, requirements are verified using prototyping, eventually to refine the data and process models. These stages are repeated iteratively; further development results in "a combined business requirements and technical design statement to be used for constructing new systems".

RAD approaches may entail compromises in functionality and performance in exchange for enabling faster development and facilitating application maintenance. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development)

Mr. Gemrald Glibara and the company do not to use Waterfall Method, because they think that they are developing an enterprise systems, and the most common thing that woul happen is it overruns. They are used to RAD process model.

In my opwn views, it is very critical that a System Analyst is able to foresee future problems that will hit the project team and the firm itself. This would be a very good quality skill that may be able to rest assure that the firm would be very effective in the future.

Another thing is, the most important skill is to become a good and excellent communicator or better have a practice and develop each employees or staffs communication skills.

System Analyst

2009-12-20T02:21:00.003-08:00

What is System Analysis

This term has many different meanings. In the sense adopted for the Handbook, systems analysis is an explicit formal inquiry carried out to help someone (referred to as the decision maker) identify a better course of action and make a better decision than he might otherwise have made. The characteristic attributes of a problem situation where systems analysis is called upon are complexity of the issue and uncertainty of the outcome of any course of action that might reasonably be taken. Systems analysis usually has some combination of the following: identification and re-identification) of objectives, constraintS, and alternative courses of action; examination of the probable consequences of the alternatives in terms of costs, benefits, and risks; presentation of the results in a comparative framework so that the decision maker can make an informed choice from among the alternatives. The typical use of systems analysis is to guide decisions on issues such as national or corporate plans and programs, resource use and protection policies, research and development in technology, regional and urban development, educational systems, and?alth and other social services. Clearly, the nature of these problems requires an interdisciplinary approach. There are several specific kinds or focuses of systems analysis for which different terms are used: A systems analysis related to public decisions is often referred to as a policy analysis (in the United States the terms are used interchangeably). A systems analysis that concentrates on comparison and ranking of alternatives on basis of their known characteristics is referred to as decision analysis.

That part or aspect of systems analysis that concentrates on finding out whether an intended course of action violates any constraints is referred to as feasibility analysis. A systems analysis in which the alternatives are ranked in terms of effectiveness for fixed cost or in terms of cost for equal effectiveness is referred to as cost-effectiveness analysis. cost-benefit effectiveness is a study where for each alternative the time stream of costs and the time stream of benefits (both in monetary units) are discounted (to yield their present values. The comparison and ranking are made in terms of net benefits (benefits minus cost) or the ratio of benefits to costs. In risk-benefit analysis , cost (in monetary units) is assigned to each risk so as to make possible a comparison of the discounted sum of these costs (and of other costs as well) with the discounted sum of benefits that are predicted to result from the decision. The risks considered are usually events whose probability of occurrence is low, but whose adverse consequences would be important (e.g., events such as an earthquake or explosion of a plant). (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/System_analy.html)

Information Systems Analyst

During the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the field of systems development was run by either a programmer or a system analyst. There were more analysts than programmers at that time yet since computing was just new in the corporate arena and there were those who could still look at systems as a whole. But there was so great a need for people who could program computers, thus the rise of programming.

Programming was so much a trend that many authors started writing books on how to boost programmer productivity, which led to the introduction of Structured Programming in the late 1970’s. Shortly thereafter, the Computer Aided Software Engineering or the CASE movement followed.

In the 1980’s, the rise of programming has led to the tremendous decline in system analysis, with trade groups slowly folding up. New job titles were introduced such as analyst/programmer and software engineer. The emphasis of the former title was more on programming, not systems analysis. At present, programmers are so much in demand in the corporate world, particularly in the Information Technology field.

Although a programmer and systems analyst may have pretty much the same scope in performing tasks, the two are still set apart by several characteristics. The programmer is more introverted and puts more focus on technology. A systems analyst, on the other hand, studies a business’s information requirements and designs system solutions that satisfy them.

Moreover, as the middleman of the programming staff, the analyst is responsible for specifying software requirements as well. Most analysts are also usually extroverted and business-minded and they should also be able to communicate well both verbally and in written in order to work effectively with the programming staff and the end-users. Additionally, they should also be able to conduct interviews, create presentations and look at things in a bigger scope.

The systems analyst knows and understands the problems encountered by end users as well the operations of the users’ department. In fact, analysts can make great candidates for top management positions. However, this has not materialized for some time now because the demand for analysts has dwindled for many years already.

Proper systems analysis plays an important role in increasing programmer productivity as analysts can provide quality specifications for application tasks. Programmers may lose valuable time without the help of systems analysts, as they may have to make second guesses as to what the end users want. As a result, this could lead to constant rewriting of software.

Simply put, programmers can improve their productivity through quality data and processing specifications that systems analysts can provide. In fact, this is even found to be even better than any available programming technique or tool there is. With good systems analysis, programming is made easier because the focus is on upfront work.

System problems cannot be completely solved with the mere use of programming techniques and tools alone – it also needs good systems analysis as well. And apart from its vital functions, good systems analysis can actually be an important factor in increasing programmer productivity too.(http://www.ankosnet.org/59-good-systems-analysis-in-increasing-programmer-productivity)

Distinguishing Characteristics of Work

This is technical and analytical work in planning and developing system requirements and enhancements for users of the State Courts' information system. The information systems analyst assists a senior analyst or consultant in determining the feasibility of implementing new computer applications or upgrades. The information systems analyst meets with users to determine and assess user needs, and designs and tests applications and enhancements. The information systems analyst is also responsible for debugging applications and providing technical support and training to users. The information systems analyst will prepare technical documentation and procedural instructions for implementing systems software. Working relationships are established with state courts personnel. Work is performed under the general supervision of the Information Systems Analyst Manager.

Education and Training Guidelines
Graduation from an accredited four year college or university with a degree in computer science or management information systems, or a degree in mathematics, statistics, or engineering with course work in computer science or management information systems, and one year of experience in systems analysis and programming. Progressively responsible experience in information systems (excluding data entry) may substitute for the recommended college education on a year for year basis.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Knowledge of computer capabilities, systems analysis, data processing, and programming techniques. Knowledge of and ability to use 3rd and 4th generation programming languages. Knowledge of the State Courts System organization, financial management methods, and record keeping practices. Ability to conduct a feasibility analysis of systems and programs requirements. Ability to prepare clear, detailed programs of instruction for users of the State Courts System management information system. Ability to detect errors on detailed charts, diagrams, and code sheets. Ability to interpret diagrammatic presentations of work flow, and prepare computer block diagrams and flow charts. Ability to act as a project leader. Ability to operate an on-line date entry terminal.(www.flcourts.org/gen_public/employment/bin/infosystanalyst.pdf)

Of course, the reason why they are called system analyst is, they need to have a very good skill in anlyzing problems. Here are some description of what should a System Analyst have:

9 main characteristics of any system:
- input,
- output,
- boundary,
- components,
- relationships,
- constraints,
- purpose,
- interfaces, and
- environment.

Course Web site as a system:

Components - course syllabus, timetable, announcements, PPT slides with lecture notes, communications tools, homework assignments, downloadable software, examples of course projects, etc.
Relations - one-to-one correspondence between course timetable and classes, deadlines for submissions of homework, etc.
Boundary - this web site works only for one course and registered students.
Purpose - gain knowledge in a specific area.
Environment - particular university or college.
Interfaces - Internet-based interface (GUI).
Input - requests from students and instructor (open file, print file, etc.).
Output - requested specific information (specific homework assignment).
Constraints - limited to a particular class, a particular college/university.
Systems for School:
Some inputs: new students, new faculty, new employees, supplies, or funding.
Some outputs: graduating or transferring students, faculty and other employees who take jobs elsewhere, knowledge, or inventions.
Boundary for a university: example may include campus with satellite colleges/departments
Components of a university: academic colleges and departments, buildings, classrooms, labs; academic functions such as registration and advising.
Relationships student to student, faculty to student, department to college, etc.
Constraints: funding, space (land), parking, number of students, etc,
Interfaces: university web sites, phones, faxes, newsletters, etc.
Purpose: produces top-quality graduates.
Environment: community for community colleges, state or set of states for local (regional) universities.

4 main skills of a system analysts:

Analytical Skills ability to see things as systems, identify, analyze, and solve problems in an optimal way for a specific organization.
Technical Skills ability to understand how computers, data networks, databases, operating systems, etc. work together, as well as their potentials and limitations.
Management Skills include organization’s recourse management, project management (people and money), risk management, and change management.

Communication Skills include effective interpersonal communication (written, verbal, visual, electronic, face-to-face conversations, presentations in front of groups), listening, group facilitation skills.

Most important system concepts:

Open system: a system that interacts freely with its environment, taking input and returning output.
Closed system: a system that is cut off from its environment and does not interact with it.
Modularity is dividing a system into parts/chunks/modules of relatively uniform size.
Decomposition is the process of breaking down a system into its component parts.
Coupling is the extent to which subsystems are dependent on each other

Technical, Managerial, Communication Skills of a System Analyst

Technical skills needed by systems analysts include but are not limited to:
1. Computers (PCs, mini, mainframes, etc.)
2. Computer networks (LAN, WAN, VPNs, administration, security, etc.)
3. Operating systems (Unix, Mac/OS, Windows)
4. Data Exchange Protocols (ftp, http, etc.)
5. Programming languages (C++, Java, XML, etc.)
6. Software applications (Office, project managements, etc.)
7. Information systems (databases, MISs, decision support systems)
8. System development tools and environments (such as report generators, office automation tools, etc.)

Managerial skills needed by systems analysts include but are not limited to:
1. resource management effectively managing the project’s resources, including time, equipment, hardware, software, people, money, etc.,
2. project management determining the tasks and resources needed for a project and how they are related to each other,
3. risk management identifying and minimizing risks,
4. change management managing the system’s (organization's) transition from one state to another
3. What kind of communication skills are needed for systems analysts?

Communication skills needed by systems analysts include:

1. clear and effective interpersonal communication, whether written, verbal, or visual, from writing reports to face–to–face conversations, to presentations in front of groups;
2. listening (accepting opinions and ideas from other project team members),
3. group facilitation or formal technical reviews (FTR) skills:
- setting an agenda,
- leading discussions,
- involving all parties in the discussion,
- summarizing ideas,
- keeping discussions on the agenda, etc.

Characteristics of high-performance team:
1. shared vision or goal
2. sense of team identity
3. result-driven structure
4. competent team members
5. commitment to the team
6. mutual trust
7. interdependence among team members
8. effective communication
9. sense of autonomy
10. small team size
11. high level of enjoyment

(http://www.interlabs.bradley.edu/NSF_CCLI/Demo/class6/module6/Skills_Pretest_Posttest_Answers.pdf)

..ISP and BP..

2009-12-20T02:07:00.002-08:00

Today, enterprise database is deployed on distributed, heterogeneous hardware and systems software environments.2 The hardware platforms are both multiple-vendor and multi-tiered, with different architectures. In short, most businesses have embraced some form of downsizing, decentralization, and distributed processing. Critical to the enterprise database environment is the capture of the business model and the implementation of the enterprise's memory: its data architectures. Once the data architectures are
implemented in a sophisticated, generalized manner, software tools can be quickly and effectively deployed to create the necessary business systems to collect, update, and report critical business data.

The business systems can be implemented through a network of databases across different computing platforms. To make database a success, each must be carefully defined, deployed along with high-quality processing systems, and effectively utilized through high-level natural languages. To have database success is to be organized. And with an organized enterprise, the past can be researched, the present can be mastered, and plans for the future can be set into place.

Before going deeply into the relationship between the business plan and Information System(IS), let us first discuss the description of each parties.

Business Plan

A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why 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.

The business goals may be defined for for-profit or for non-profit organizations. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals, such as profit or creation of wealth. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on organizational mission which is the basis for their governmental status or their non-profit, tax-exempt status, respectively—although non-profits may also focus on optimizing revenue. In non-profit organizations, creative tensions may develop in the effort to balance mission with "margin" (or revenue). Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, tax-payer, or larger community. A business plan having changes in perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan.

Business plans may be internally or externally focused. Externally focused plans target goals that are important to external stakeholders, particularly financial stakeholders. They typically have detailed information about the organization or team attempting to reach the goals. With for-profit entities, external stakeholders include investors and customers. External stake-holders of non-profits include donors and the clients of the non-profit's services. For government agencies, external stakeholders include tax-payers, higher-level government agencies, and international lending bodies such as the IMF, the World Bank, various economic agencies of the UN, and development banks.

Internally focused business plans target intermediate goals required to reach the external goals. They may cover the development of a new product, a new service, a new IT system, a restructuring of finance, the refurbishing of a factory or a restructuring of the organization. An internal business plan is often developed in conjunction with a balanced scorecard or a list of critical success factors. This allows success of the plan to be measured using non-financial measures. Business plans that identify and target internal goals, but provide only general guidance on how they will be met are called strategic plans.

Operational plans describe the goals of an internal organization, working group or department. Project plans, sometimes known as project frameworks, describe the goals of a particular project. They may also address the project's place within the organization's larger strategic goals.

Business plans are decision-making tools. There is no fixed content for a business plan. Rather the content and format of the business plan is determined by the goals and audience. A business plan should contain whatever information is needed to decide whether or not to pursue a goal.

For example, a business plan for a non-profit might discuss the fit between the business plan and the organization’s mission. Banks are quite concerned about defaults, so a business plan for a bank loan will build a convincing case for the organization’s ability to repay the loan. Venture capitalists are primarily concerned about initial investment, feasibility, and exit valuation. A business plan for a project requiring equity financing will need to explain why current resources, upcoming growth opportunities, and sustainable competitive advantage will lead to a high exit valuation.

The format of a business plan depends on its presentation context. It is not uncommon for businesses, especially start-ups to have three or four formats for the same business plan:

* an "elevator pitch" - a three minute summary of the business plan's executive summary. This is often used as a teaser to awaken the interest of potential funders, customers, or strategic partners.

* an oral presentation - a hopefully entertaining slide show and oral narrative that is meant to trigger discussion and interest potential investors in reading the written presentation. The content of the presentation is usually limited to the executive summary and a few key graphs showing financial trends and key decision making benchmarks. If a new product is being proposed and time permits, a demonstration of the product may also be included.

* a written presentation for external stakeholders - a detailed, well written, and pleasingly formatted plan targeted at external stakeholders.

* an internal operational plan - a detailed plan describing planning details that are needed by management but may not be of interest to external stakeholders. Such plans have a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality than the version targeted at external stakeholders.

Typical structure for a business plan for a start up venture[8]

* cover page and table of contents
* executive summary
* business description
* business environment analysis
* industry background
* competitive analysis
* market analysis
* marketing plan
* operations plan
* management summary
* financial plan
* attachments and milestones

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plan)

Information System Plan

Characteristics of a Quality ISP

A quality ISP must exhibit five distinct characteristics before it is useful. These five are presented in the table that follows.

Timely

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.

Useable

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.
Maintainable 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. Once these changes are accomplished, the new ISP should be just a few computer program executions away.

Quality

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. As these changes occur, their effects should be installable into the data that supports ISP computation. In short, the ISP is a living document. It should be updated with every technology event, and certainly no less often than quarterly.

Reproducible

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.

The ISP Steps

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. Once developed, each identified information system is seen in context with all other information systems within the enterprise.

The following are the steps in Information System Planning:

Create the mission model

The mission model, generally shorter than 30 pages presents end-result characterizations of the essential raison d=etre of the enterprise. Missions are strategic, long range, and a-political because they are stripped of the who and the how.

Develop a high-level data model

The high-level data model is an Entity Relationship diagram created to meet the data needs of the mission descriptions. No attributes or keys are created.

Create the resource life cycles (RLC) and their nodes

Resources are drawn from both the mission descriptions and the high level data model. Resources and their life cycles are the names, descriptions and life cycles of the critical assets of the enterprise, which, when exercised achieve one or more aspect of the missions.

Allocate precedence vectors among RLC nodes

Tied together into a enablement network, the resulting resource life cycle network forms a framework of enterprise=s assets that represent an order and set of inter-resource relationships.

Allocate existing information systems and databases to the RLC nodes

The resource life cycle network presents a Alattice-work onto which the Aas is@ business information systems and databases can be Aattached. See for example, the meta model in Figure 2. The Ato-be databases and information systems are similarly attached. ADifference projects between the Aas-is and the Ato-be are then formulated. Achievement of all the difference projects is the achievement of the Information Systems Plan.

Allocate standard work break down structures (WBS) to each RLC node Detailed planning of the Adifference projects entails allocating the appropriate canned work breakdown structures and metrics. Employing WBS and metrics from a comprehensive methodology supports project management standardization, repeatability, and self-learning.

Load resources into each WBS node

Once the resources are determined, these are loaded into the project management meta entities of the meta data repository, that is, metrics, project, work plan and deliverables. The meta entities are those inferred by
8.Schedule the RLC nodes through a project management package facilities. The entire suite of projects is then scheduled on an enterprise-wide basis. The PERT chart used by project management is the Resource Life Cycle enablement network.

Produce and review of the ISP

The scheduled result is predicable: Too long, too costly, and too ambitious. At that point, the real work starts: paring down the suite of projects to a realistic set within time and budget. Because of the meta data environment , the integrated project management meta data and because all projects are configured against fundamental business-rationale based designs, the results of the inevitable trade-offs can be set against business basics. Although the process is painful, the results can be justified and rationalized.

Execute and adjust the ISP through time.

As the ISP is set into execution, technology changes occur that affect resource loadings. In this case, only steps 6-9 need to be repeated. As work progresses, the underlying meta data built or used in steps 1-5 will also change. Because a quality ISP is Aautomated@ the recasting of the ISP should only take a week or less.
(http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262)

As a summary, any technique employed to achieve an ISP must be accomplishable with less than 3% of the IT budget. Additionally, it must be timely, useable, maintainable, able to be iterated into a quality product, and reproducible. IT organizations, once they have completed their initial set of databases and business information systems will find themselves transformed from a project to a release environment.

The continuous flow environment then becomes the only viable alternative for moving the enterprise forward. It is precisely because of the release environment that enterprise-wide information systems plans that can be created, evolved, and maintained are essential.

Now, the relationship between IS plan and business plan is that IS planning is dependent on the business plan of a firm or company, in which IS plan needs to function as how the firm needs it and how will it able to increase the capacity of the firm. The business plan can also become a guide for the project team in order for them to make an Information System that would be very much close to fit the firm perfectly.

2009-12-16T19:09:00.003-08:00

Let us first define Information System(IS).

What is IS?
In a very broad sense, the term information system is frequently used to refer to the interaction between people, processes, data and technology. In this sense, the term is used to refer not only to the information and communication technology (ICT) an organization uses, but also to the way in which people interact with this technology in support of business processes.

Some make a clear distinction between information systems, ICT and business processes. Information systems are distinct from information technology in that an information system is typically seen as having an ICT component. Information systems are also different from business processes. Information systems help to control the performance of business processes.

Alter argues for an information system as a special type of work system. A work system is a system in which humans and/or machines perform work using resources (including ICT) to produce specific products and/or services for customers. An information system is a work system whose activities are devoted to processing (capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving, manipulating and displaying)information.

Part of the difficulty in defining the term information system is due to vagueness in the definition of related terms such as system and information. Beynon-Davies argues for a clearer terminology based in systemics and semiotics. He defines an information system as an example of a system concerned with the manipulation of signs. An information system is a type of socio-technical system. An information system is a mediating construct between actions and technology.

As such, information systems inter-relate with data systems on the one hand and activity systems on the other. An information system is a form of communication system in which data represent and are processed as a form of social memory. An information system can also be considered a semi-formal language which supports human decision making and action.

Information systems are the primary focus of study for the information systems discipline and for organisational informatics.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_system)

The later subject we have taken last semester was all about IS. And as a peek of my learnings of the first day:

Great and fun! That’s how our first class in MIS has been. It was all smiles and laughers from the moment the class started until it ended. Even when I was already outside the class room, I still can’t stop grinning; I can’t stop thinking how our teacher interpreted his students’ reaction when he gives a bunch of assignments.

Anal. Geom. was my first subject under the supervision of Sir Randy Gamboa then, followed by Stats and now in MIS. I am expecting that I’ll be able to understand MIS as clearly as possible and I hope that learning every single thing about MIS would be a lot of fun than the last two subjects I have gone under Sir Gamboa.

Management Information System or MIS deals with managing/supervising hard ware, soft ware and people ware. It has four basic keys, which are planning, directing, organizing and controlling. Other than these things, I have also learned the differences between managing and supervising. I have learned that managing is actually controlling while supervising is just giving directions and guides.

Blog was required to us by our teacher. So, I was obliged to establish a blog of my own. Then, I realize blogging is fun. Blogging as a way of sharing views, opinions and even experiences does works for me.

Over all, it was a lot of fun, really. The way Sir Gamboa welcomed the transferees was warm, really warm, and warm as they were in a hot seat. Then I have concluded that students in Tagum Campus love to sing. That’s all, I guess…^_^

A subject that I expect to give me jaw-aches, due to constant smiling and laughing; backaches because of being in a sitting position for too long; headache for squeezing out every English word from my vocabulary and maybe even heartache at the end of the semester.

Now that we have unederstood the nature of IS and have defined the scope of IS, we will now discussed about the risk associated with it. As a reference we will be using the details and informations have used and learned from hubport company.

Risk Associated with IS/IT Change

Hubport Interactive is an IT based company that enables a business to build an imperative subsistence in the online B2C (Business-to-Consumer) space. They empower their customers' websites to attain optimum function and revolutionizes business by creating online channels to effectively connect with existing clients and successfully tap new ones. Their accomplished E-Commerce Storefront encoders, Retail Shop Managers, and Online Marketing Consultants provide the technology backbone that launch prospering and profitable websites.(http://www.hubportinteractive.com/about-us.htm)

As the interviewee say, the company started only with eight people, which is composed of six(6) developers and two(2) designers. They don't really have an IS to keep track of their business' movement. They only use one(1) computer and basic softwares for their business. Records for the deadline is aided by pen and paper. From that very simple alliance they have evolve into something big that they even reached and surpassed the boundary of the Philippines. Now, they've been working with more or less one hundred and fifty(150) staffs. The speaker added that they started establishing and using IS for their growing business in the year late 2006, particularly on the month of November.

As he has discussed that the role of IS/IT in the business is, it is the core or the backbone of their business, in which these systems keep track of their customers, old and new, and their staffs. He define IT/IS very important, that is ranging from software, which is essential for website developing and it can identify errors and split them up much faster than usual, with manual; hardware on the other hand, acts as the server and it is necessary for the staffs to have at least one(1) computer each, these hardwares are connected to each other, which is technically called networking, particularly by WAN or wide-area network, they use WAN because the company is based from the main office, which is located at the United States of America or USA, through internet; peopleware as the speaker says, are the one who develops, secures and maintains hardware and software, thus software and hardware relies on the people ware. As he said, "Hardwares would just be there without peopleware". These three things work together to uphold the business thus, enabling them to reach the full functionality of their company so they can provide the very best solution they can give for their clients and customers.
The risk associated with Information System change in Hubport Interactive.

Hubport Interactive is the same organization or company we have visited for the first assignment, which is identifying their best practices regarding Information System. Now, I would have to tackle about the risks associated with IT change in the company.

As the IT Officer enumerated, the following are the risks they would have to take when changing IS:

* Data loss
Data loss may come in two reasons, first is, the data which is stored for quite sometime will be given up for the new data. Since system's memory is limited and coming in of new data is a continuous process, they would have to delete old data and will try to use the space for the new data; a secondary reason is, changing into new IS will tend to risk their data, especially when the new system has features that won't be compatible with the old system.

* Rejection of staffs
This may also come in to two situations. First, as from what we all know that there is always resistance between technology and people, meaning people tend to deny that IS/IT is a big help when it comes to maximizing time. Thus, when a new system is implemented, staffs will tend to reject it. The staffs will choose to use the old one other than the new one. It is maybe because, they find it hard or time consuming to learn the new system without knowing that they would have a better use of their time on the future if and only if they give time on learning the new system. The second reason may be hiring new personnel who knows best regarding the new IS, will push the company to ask the old IS personnel to resign, which is a very critical choice. It may be a bad move but that's business, the company will have to hire people or staffs who have a better understanding of what the position their trying to fill and reject those who are not needed.

Further problem of rejection of staff/s may also give high risk regarding the cost of the new personnel. This may push the company to pay bigger amount than the older system and personnel.

What is an IS Plan?

IS plan is a process for developing a strategy and plans for aligning information systems with the business strategies of an organization.

Here is a sample of Information System Plan of the Agriculture Department of State of Tennessee:

Prior to the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1), each agency develops an Information Systems Plan (ISP) covering a threeyear planning horizon. Year One identifies projects for the current fiscal year for which funding is already in place. Year Two covers the following fiscal year where funding will be requested in the budget submitted in October. Year three covers future projects. Development of the agency's ISP is a cooperative effort between executive management, business staff, and Information Systems staff. Agency executive management and business staff, with Information Systems staff assistance, perform the following activities:

Review of the strategic business plan for the agency, including the statement of mission,
goals, objectives, strategies, and priorities that set business direction.

Assessment of the current technological environment within the agency, including
evaluation of the primary hardware requirements, application software, and connectivity.

Development of an Information Technology Strategy based upon the analysis of the
current environment and the business goals to be achieved. This strategy identifies the
agency's short and longrange goals related to managing and sharing information and information technology in support of the agency’s business strategic plan. The strategy also addresses agency technology weaknesses and needs.

Information technology projects are identified and documented in the ISP in support of the Information Technology Strategy. These projects may include traditional application development or acquisition projects, as well as projects involving specific technologies including voice response systems, geographic information systems, and communication infrastructure projects. Each project with initial costs over $100,000 is described in a Project Proposal. The Project Proposal addresses the business process to be impacted by the project and specifies the business strategy or objectives supported by the project. A Cost Benefit Analysis document is also included to detail the costs, benefits, risks, and funding sources for the project. The Project Proposal and Cost Benefit Analysis provide a framework for an agency’s executive management to evaluate and prioritize proposed projects, as well as provide a mechanism to monitor costs and benefits during project implementation. These documents also provide executive management in State government with the information needed to understand the business impact to the State, prioritize projects on a statewide basis, and recommend funding.

The Information Systems Plans are reviewed and authorized by Management Advisory Committees (MACs) within each agency. Management Advisory Committees perform the following functions:

1. Sets the information technology agenda as an adjunct to the development of the
business strategy for the agency.
2. Ensures that the agency information technology strategy is carried out and that projects
are appropriately targeted to support specific business strategies.
3. Reviews the cost assumptions and benefit estimates in order to approve submission of
the project.
4. Sets priorities within the agency for a project in relation to other projects competing for
resources.
5. Ensures that authorized projects meet targets established in the project proposal and
cost benefit analysis.
6. Ensures that technology projects are in line with business needs and direction.
7. Authorizes the Information Systems Plan and the technology projects contained therein.
(http://www.tn.gov/finance/oir/planning/ispprocess.pdf)

If I were to prepare an IS plan for the university, I will follow the following steps in creating my Information System:

*Study the requirements and the processes and systems needed by both staffs and students.

*Make sure the systems I will implement is a great help and is fully functioning.

*I will have to do a research and interview students and staffs with regards to the University's System, especially on busy days.

*I would have to provide a solution with regards to the problems of the student.

*Finally, implement the System

As for my opinion I would like to have every system in the university be a Mobile Application, so it would be easier for both parties (staffs and students) to get information and would be able to save money and time.

It would be best to have a security for the Information and this will only allow individual to access their own information only.

A Worthy IT Professional

2009-11-19T04:20:00.002-08:00

On our later subject HRM, we were asked to develop a job description of the job we want to hold in the future. As an answer I've chosen the job called game developer. The next paragraphs are the description of the said job.

A good story line, nice graphics and characters, unique animation schemes and a bug-less programs is what a good game holds. The story of the games must reach the player’s mind as if it was somewhat real or life-like thus, making the game interesting. Graphics and the compilation of arts that moves through animation are the things that make it fun and a bug-less program is what keeps the player’s patience and makes them want to reach the goal of the game. Common game story line may involve strategic games, word games, dress up game and escape games, which is one of my favorites. Games enables player to be in control of the game thus, letting them act as the main character of the game. Through this gamers will be able to develop quick thinking to win the game.

Games, particularly computer games also called video games, were introduced as a new kind of entertainment on the year 1971. The growth of technology has made it more popular. As years pass, many kinds of computer games have been developed including LAN or local area network and online games. LAN games can be played on everyone’s desktop. Online games can be played with the aid of internet, this way a certain player can play with another player no matter how many miles they’re apart. These games have even reached the cell phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games).

The ones who make and develop games are called games developer or games programmer. The job needs a vast and wide range of imagination thus, making it possible to create a unique story and characters. A good skill in arts and animation would make the things on the developers mind to come into life. The sound effects can make the game exciting. This also helps to catch the people’s eyes because a good graphics is a big impact on how the game will sell. Of course, the most important skill to have is knowledge with regards to programming language such as, C++, Java and any other programming language. A good skill in arithmetic will turn your program to become bug-less.

A game developer meets problems during and after producing the games, thus the most important attitude a developer can have is patience. This will enable him to find and correct bugs that are found during or after the game have been produced. The pressure of meeting deadline may be stressful but, this is just one thing a good developer should overcome because a simple bug on the game will destroy the game thus, making the game boring and unfair for those who doesn’t know the bug yet, which will push them to stop playing or choosing another game, which are better than the one you have just developed.

I both love arts and anime so I guess a games developer would be the best job for me in the near future. I would love to be part of a team that creates a new kind of game. Since I am a type of person who doesn’t want to be exposed in unfamiliar crowd, a job like this would fit me best. Another thing is, I would be able to give out my talent and skills with teammates, whom I already know and comfortable with. With this kind of profession, I can also work alone and I’d be able to work at home then, just sell my developed game to those who are interested.

As for this subject, MIS 2, we were asked to think about ourselves worthy to be called an IT professional, how do we see ourselves 10 years from now, what are our strategies to get there?

When we think of the title "IT professional" and the span of time, 10 years from now, we may think that it is still too far away, but as fast as how the climate changes, 10 years is indeed a very short time. Even the firms in the country or even all over the world, make plans for their companies in a span of little time, because they are aware that they should surpass how time passes.

As for my plans for the next 10 years, I would first set my visions, then get through my missions and reach my goals step by step.

My vision would be: "Worthy to be called IT Professional."

Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."[1] IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.

Today, the term information has ballooned to encompass many aspects of computing and technology, and the term has become very recognizable. IT professionals perform a variety of duties that range from installing applications to designing complex computer networks and information databases. A few of the duties that IT professionals perform may include data management, networking, engineering computer hardware, database and software design, as well as the management and administration of entire systems.

When computer and communications technologies are combined, the result is information technology, or "infotech". Information technology is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information. Presumably, when speaking of Information Technology (IT) as a whole, it is noted that the use of computers and information are associated.

In recent days ABET and the ACM have collaborated to form accreditation and curriculum standards for degrees in Information Technology as a distinct field of study separate from both Computer Science and Information Systems. SIGITE is the ACM working group for defining these standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_technology

the best way, for me, to interpret an IT Professional are those people who has vast and very wide knowledge with regards to Information itself, he/she is able to manipulate information naturally. He she must have experiences with regards to the profession itself.

My mission for now is, of course, be a worthy IT professional and for me to reach that and to hold that title is to have a step by step strategies. The following are my steps on reaching my mission and even my vision:

First, I would have to earn a bachelors degree that has connection to my vision. I would have to keep my study as my priority while I'm still reaching for my diploma. I would also have to get good grades in order foe me to land a good job.

Second, I would have to land a good job that is exactly my interest and that would be able to make me even more competent as a person striving to be called an IT professional. I would need to have as many experience as I can while I'm on the go for enjoying what I have at present.

Internet

2009-09-30T04:59:00.004-07:00

Internet connects people all over the world, through this transfer of information has been very easy and fast. Not like before the Internet was introduced, people tend to give more effort transporting data and information manually, which will take more time and even pushes you to spend more money.

The concept and foundation for creation of the Internet was somehow developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about technology by accurately predicting its future:

Vannevar Bush wrote the first visionary description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system.
Norbert Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, inspiring future researchers to focus on the use of technology to extend human capabilities.
The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence conference crystallized the concept that technology was improving at an exponential rate, and provided the first serious consideration of the consequences.
Marshall McLuhan made the idea of a global village interconnected by an electronic nervous system part of our popular culture.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first satellite, Sputnik I, triggering US President Dwight Eisenhower to create the ARPA agency to regain the technological lead in the arms race. ARPA appointed J.C.R. Licklider to head the new IPTO organization with a mandate to further the research of the SAGE program and help protect the US against a space-based nuclear attack. Licklider evangelized within the IPTO about the potential benefits of a country-wide communications network, influencing his successors to hire Lawrence Roberts to implement his vision.

Roberts led development of the network, based on the new idea of packet switching discovered by Paul Baran at RAND, and a few years later by Donald Davies at the UK National Physical Laboratory. A special computer called an Interface Message Processor was developed to realize the design, and the ARPANET went live in early October, 1969. The first communications were between Leonard Kleinrock's research center at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Douglas Engelbart's center at the Stanford Research Institute.

The first networking protocol used on the ARPANET was the Network Control Program. In 1983, it was replaced with the TCP/IP protocol developed by Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf, and others, which quickly became the most widely used network protocol in the world.

In 1990, the ARPANET was retired and transferred to the NSFNET. The NSFNET was soon connected to the CSNET, which linked Universities around North America, and then to the EUnet, which connected research facilities in Europe. Thanks in part to the NSF's enlightened management, and fueled by the popularity of the web, the use of the Internet exploded after 1990, causing the US Government to transfer management to independent organizations starting in 1995.
http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_summary.htm

Infrastructure description

The overall responsibility for managing Internet Protocol address or domain names at upper levels is vested in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which delegates the actual administration of most functions to other bodies.

At global regional levels, the principal bodies providing allocation and registration services that support the operation of the Internet globally are:

RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre)
ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers)
APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre)
LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry)
AfriNIC (African Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources)

Internet Operations

Internet operations are coordinated worldwide through the Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG), an Internet operational group intended to assist Internet Service Providers to interoperate within the Global Internet. At global regional levels, bodies active in coordinating operations include the:
American Registry for Internet Numbers

Manages the Internet numbering resources for North America, a portion of the Caribbean, and sub-equatorial Africa.

Asia Pacific Networking Group (APOPs)
Promotes the Internet and the coordination of network inter-connectivity in the Asia Pacific Region.
Internet Security

Internet network security is significantly facilitated by a number of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in eight countries and within a number of service provider operations and private networks. They were formed to continually monitor the network for security incidents, serve as a repository for information about such incidents, and develop responsive advisories. The CERTs are coordinated by the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.

Internationalisation

Alis Technologies

Founded in 1981, Alis Technologies Inc. develops standards for Multilingual Information Management Solutions (MIMS )with the IETF (Internet Engeneering Task Force), the Unicode Consortium, W3C and LISA.
Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Committee
Working group to study making domain names available in character sets other than ASCII.
MINC (Multilingual Internet Names Consortium)
A non-profit, non-governmental, international organization. It focuses on the promotion of multilingualisation of Internet names, including Internet domain names and keywords, internationalization of Internet names standards and protocols, technical coordination and liaison with other international bodies.
CNNIC (China Network Information Center)
(site is in Chinese)
KRNIC (Korea Network Information Center)
Established the system for managing Internet address resources in Korea.
TWNIC (Taiwan Network Infomation Center)
The unique neutral and non-profit organization that takes charge of the domain name registration and IP address allocation in Taiwan.
The Unicode Consortium
Responsible for defining the behavior and relationships between Unicode characters, and providing technical information to implementers. The Consortium cooperates with ISO in refining the specification and expanding the character set.
Internet Connectivity
Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC)
Database about international networking developments and Internet connectivity providers, with major emphasis on countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Oceania. Information is available on country-by-country basis and includes connectivity providers, networking infrastructure, and other country-specific information.

Connectivity Table from University of Wisconsin's FTP server.
Lists entities with and without international network connectivity. Shows countries (with ISO two letter country code (ISO 3166)) which have:
international IP Internet links
domestic UUCP sites which are connected to the Global Multiprotocol Open Internet, and
domestic FIDONET sites which are connected to the Global Multiprotocol Open Internet.
Connectivity Maps
Internet Hosts Map
Shows the millions of Internet hosts worldwide as of January 1999.
http://www.isoc.org/internet/infrastructure/

As the Internet grows in popularity (and usefulness?), choosing the right connection for accessing it is becoming a very important decision at many nonprofits. While modems still provide many smaller nonprofits with their crawling connection, DSL, cable, ISDN, and T1 are introducing many organizations to the joys of high-speed access.
Speed

When you read an ad that says: "Our Connection Provides You With an Amazing and Unbelievable 10 Megs Per Second Download Speed," you should be amazed, but maybe not as much as you think. Some time back, a quick marketing person decided that Internet connection speed would be better described in bits, not the bytes usually used to describe disk size and RAM space. So that "unbelievable" 10 MegaBITS per second is actually about 1.25 megaBYTES per second. This article, not to confuse things further, will continue to discuss Internet speed in bits per second. So, don't jump out of your skin the next time you read about another "unbelievable" download speed. Simply divide by 8.
Types of Access: Dial-Up vs. "Always On"

Anyone who has used a modem knows the problems associated with dial-up access. Even if you just want to check your email for one minute, you have to wait a couple minutes for your modem to dial a number and establish a connection to your ISP. It often takes less time to check your email than it does to connect the Internet! While this isn't a major problem if you rarely use the Internet, it can be a major annoyance if you use it heavily. For heavy users, a dedicated, "always on" connection such as DSL or T1 is the better alternative. Not only does such a connection provide access "on demand," it is also faster and easier to share with a large group of users.
Dial-Up Connection - 56K

Bottom line -- modem speeds have pretty much hit the speed limit with 56K modems. In fact, 56K is a little misleading. Due to FCC regulations, the maximum transmission is more around 53K. If your organization needs a faster connection, you will have to go with a digital connection (i.e. xDSL, ISDN, etc.). However, if you find the right ISP, and your nonprofit doesn't have high access demands, modems may more than fulfill your needs.
http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/connections/archives/page10224.cfm

As said above, it is better to use DSL than Dial-up and it is a good thing that the university's Internet connection was DSL.

Technology
Internet Rocket Homepageware 5.0
Internet Rocket is a simple tool for speeding up an Internet connection. Use the easy to follow wizard to optimize the registry for your Internet connection. DNS Rocket will cache server information on hard drive to speed the Internet even more.

InternetVelocity 1.5
InternetVelocity is a powerful utility that dramatically increases the speed that you surf the web by configuring key TCP/IP parameters, filtering Pop-up and Banner Ads, and prefetching pages before you need them! Surf two, or three times faster!

Accelerweb 2.0
Welcome to Accelerweb! Accelerweb is the latest in simple Internet acceleration technology. Accelerweb caches DNS settings to the hosts file. Accelerweb will store IP address/domain information in a local cache called the "Hosts" file.

http://fast-internet.softplatz.net/

Infrastracture
In information technology and on the Internet, infrastructure is the physical hardware used to interconnect computers and users. Infrastructure includes the transmission media, including telephone lines, cable television lines, and satellites and antennas, and also the routers, aggregators, repeaters, and other devices that control transmission paths. Infrastructure also includes the software used to send, receive, and manage the signals that are transmitted.

In some usages, infrastructure refers to interconnecting hardware and software and not to computers and other devices that are interconnected. However, to some information technology users, infrastructure is viewed as everything that supports the flow and processing of information.

Infrastructure companies play a significant part in evolving the Internet, both in terms of where the interrconnections are placed and made accessible and in terms of how much information can be carried how quickly.
http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci212346,00.html

As from what I know, the university is using fiber-optic cable, which is a glass or plastic fiber that carries light along its length. Fiber optics is the overlap of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers. Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communications, which permits transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates) than other forms of communications. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss, and they are also immune to electromagnetic interference. Fibers are also used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so they can be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in tight spaces. Specially designed fibers are used for a variety of other applications, including sensors and fiber lasers.

Light is kept in the core of the optical fiber by total internal reflection. This causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers which support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers (MMF), while those which can only support a single mode are called single-mode fibers (SMF). Multi-mode fibers generally have a larger core diameter, and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be transmitted. Single-mode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 550 meters (1,800 ft).

Joining lengths of optical fiber is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable. The ends of the fibers must be carefully cleaved, and then spliced together either mechanically or by fusing them together with an electric arc. Special connectors are used to make removable connections.

Fiber optic cables can transfer data through light and it is more reliable compared to UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) or STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) cable, since it is more protected from disturbances and noises.

The only thing is, fiber optic cable cost you more when talking about expense and it is more sensitive, when cutting, so it needs a specialized cutter.

All in all I am contented with the Internet connection of the University, except for the fact that the Internet connection sometimes, time out.

HRM on SONA '09

2009-09-29T04:10:00.005-07:00

With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity.

-BPO or Business Process Outsourcing have been very popular to the Filipinos. Through BPO's companies will come to hire people from the Philippines, thus, giving a huge numbers of opportunity for the Filipino workers.

In the last four years tourism almost doubled. It is now a $5 billion industry.

-Tourism is one of the jobs for those people and workers that are not qualified for an office work. Our native people are the ones that will benefit mostly with regards to tourism. They can become tour guides and when numbers of tourist will come to visit Philippines, that means more dollars will come for the Philippines.

Sa pagpapamahagi ng milyun-milyong ektaryang lupa, 700,000 na katutubo at mahigit isang milyong benepisyaryo ng CARP ay taas-noong may-ari na ng sariling lupa.

-Filipinos are born farmers, it is the primary job of a huge percent of the Filipinos. By granting hectares for native people, they would be able to plant more raw materials and foods, especially rice. This means that they will be more numbers of stocks for export and for the Philippines itself.

Nakinabang ang pitong milyong entrepreneurs sa P165 billion na microfinance loans.

-Due to this, there will be lot of companies and firms that will rise, which means they will need huge numbers of employees, thus, resulting to reduce or even vanish the problem with unemployed Filipinos.

Nagtayo tayo ng 95,000 na silid-aralan, nagdagdag ng 60,000 na guro, naglaan ng P1.5 billion para sa teacher training, especially for 100,000 English teachers.

-As from what we all know, that education is the only property that can not be bought, and another thing is, it is the foundation of every Filipinos lives and job in the future. If there will be more class rooms established, the more students will be accommodated by a certain school, especially public schools located on native areas.

Information Environment

2009-09-29T03:47:00.004-07:00

Have you ever heard of the Quezon City Controlled Disposal Facility? You may not be familiar., but I'll tell you anyway. The Quezon City Controlled Disposal Facility was before called the Payatas Dumpsite, which has burried more than 200 lives on the year 2000. The new system that was implemented of the said place was having a better use of the biogas emmitted by garbage on the said site. They have made used of they're problem before. In which this biogas emissions will be converted into electricity that is enough to empower numbers of cloth irons.

One of the potential solutions in social and environmental sustainability in municipal solid waste management (MSW) in Metro Manila is to combine community-based recycling and sound landfill management strategies. The marriage of the two puts importance on recycling as a source of livelihood while proper landfill management aims to improve the aesthetic and environmental quality of disposal facilities in urban areas. To do this, a social mapping of wastepickers, junkshops and local recycling practices needs to be undertaken and at the same time assess strategies of the national and local governments vis-à-vis existing laws on municipal solid waste. The case of Payatas controlled disposal facility was taken as a pilot study because it represents the general condition of disposal sites in Metro Manila and the social landscape that it currently has. In addition, a waste-to-energy (WTE) project has been established in Payatas to produce electricity from methane gas. Preliminary interviews with wastepickers show that development interventions in disposal sites such as WTE pose no opposition from host communities for as long as alternative livelihood opportunities are provided. Regulating the flow of wastepickers into the landfill has advantages like improved income and security. Felt needs were also articulated like provision of financial support or capital for junkshop operation and skills training. Overall, a smooth relationship between the local government and community associations pays well in a transitioning landfill management scheme such as Payatas.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8CX4-4W45TP3-C&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1028165164&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2ab9fbae8bd428dc04602b2b86b2660a

The latest typhoon called Ondoy that hit Luzon, Metro Manila and nearby cities and places. According to PAG-ASA, the typhoon sustained winds 85 kph and almost reached up to 100 kph. It was just a day of surprised flooding and yet it has ended many lives without any hesitation, whether lives are young or not. The flood even reached as high as Meralco posts.

Ondoy was not the only disaster that hit Philippines, the landslides that have killed numbers of lives and we’re still counting for more disasters to come. It is normal that we have typhoons but the latest disaster the Philippines encountered was far from normal. It isn’t normal to sink the whole town with just a signal number one typhoon. It didn’t even choose whom to kill and even the Philippine celebrities, which are expected to be safer have not even, become safer than any other Filipino people.

The Philippines is a very crucial country Philippines is said to belong on the Pacific Ring of Fire. Pacific Ring of Fire is an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km curve shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 45 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.

About 90% of the world's earthquakes and 80% of the world's largest earthquakes occur along the Ring of Fire. The next most seismic region (5–6% of earthquakes and 17% of the world's largest earthquakes) is the Alpide belt, which extends from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the third most prominent earthquake belt.

The Ring of Fire is a direct result of plate tectonics and the movement and collisions of crustal plates. The eastern section of the ring is the result of the Nazca Plate and the Cocos Plate being subducted beneath the westward moving South American Plate. A portion of the Pacific Plate along with the small Juan de Fuca Plate are being subducted beneath the North American Plate. Along the northern portion the northwestward moving Pacific plate is being subducted beneath the Aleutian Islands arc. Further west the Pacific plate is being subducted along the Kamchatka Peninsula arcs on south past Japan. The southern portion is more complex with a number of smaller tectonic plates in collision with the Pacific plate from the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Bougainville, Tonga, and New Zealand. Indonesia lies between the Ring of Fire along the northeastern islands adjacent to and including New Guinea and the Alpide belt along the south and west from Sumatra, Java, Bali, Flores, and Timor. The famous and very active San Andreas Fault zone of California is a transform fault which offsets a portion of the East Pacific Rise under southwestern United States and Mexico. The motion of the fault generates numerous small earthquakes, at multiple times a day, most of which are too small to be felt. The active Queen Charlotte Fault on the west coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, Canada, has generated three large earthquakes during the 20th century: a magnitude 7 event in 1929, a magnitude 8.1 occurred in 1949 (Canada's largest recorded earthquake) and a magnitude 7.4 in 1970.
In the Philippines, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo is the world's second largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century. Successful predictions of the onset of the climactic eruption led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding areas, saving many lives, but as the surrounding areas were severely damaged by pyroclastic flows, ash deposits, and later, lahars caused by rainwater remobilising earlier volcanic deposits, thousands of houses were destroyed.

Mayon Volcano is the Philippines' most active volcano. The volcano has steep upper slopes that average 35–40 degrees and is capped by a small summit crater. The historical eruptions of this basaltic-andesitic volcano dates back to 1616 and ranges from Strombolian to basaltic Plinian eruptions. Eruptions occur predominately from the central conduit and have also produced lava flows that travel far down the flanks. Pyroclastic flows and mudflows have commonly swept down many of the approximately 40 ravines that radiate from the summit and have often devastated populated lowland areas.

Taal Volcano has had 33 recorded eruptions since 1572. A devastating eruption occurred in 1911, which claimed more than a thousand lives. The deposits of that eruption consisted of a yellowish, fairly decomposed (non-juvenile) tephra with a high sulfur content. The most recent period of activity lasted from 1965 to 1977, and was characterized by the interaction of magma with the lake water, which produced violent phreatic explosions. Although the volcano has been dormant since 1977, it has shown signs of unrest since 1991, with strong seismic activity and ground fracturing events, as well as the formation of small mud geysers on parts of the island.

Kanlaon is the most active volcano in central Philippines and has erupted 25 times since 1866. Eruptions are typically phreatic explosions of small-to-moderate size that produce minor ashfalls near the volcano. On August 10, 1996, Kanlaon erupted without warning, killing British student Julian Green and Filipinos Noel Tragico and Neil Perez, who were among 24 mountainclimbers who were trapped near the summit.
And now, we are slowly drowning due to global warming, which melts the ice glaciers all over the world. It is even rumored that by the time that all of the ice glaciers melted, the highest peak, Mt. Apo, will become a small island. Doesn’t it fear? While we are enjoying the modern world discoveries, we have forgotten and became deaf of our mother earth’s voice. We have become deaf due to the noises that are emitted by large machines that also emit large smokes that suffocate the globe more than we are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ring_of_Fire

So what can we young ones do? Simple, we can at least reduce smokes and stacked garbage. By small actions, like throwing garbage in its right place and segregating them will reduce even 0.00000001 garbage that aren’t on its right place. We can replace plastic bags with paper bags or even cloth bags. We should bear in mind that plastic bags takes more than a lifetime to decay.

With regards to the modernized machines and technology, since development of technology is the main reason why global warming has gone so far. Yes, it is true that we can’t take technology and gadgets away from the people of the world. The people have adopted them and have learned to live them. Another thing is, it would be difficult to go back to the old ways, where we get to walk at least a kilometer just to get to the middle of the town. We have been living the way we live today with great ease, in which we forget or oversee the negative results it will bring when the time comes.

Like our lives, earth is also one in the whole world. Everything is changing and change is nature itself. I am not saying that it is fine to change the world, I am rather emphasizing that we can’t change the past but we can we can always regret them, thus, giving us an overview of what will happen if don’t move today.

Personnel Management and Human Resource Managment

2009-09-21T22:43:00.014-07:00

When it comes to handling all the responsibilities associated with maintaining a workforce, personnel management has the most legal and financial responsibilities of the whole organization, without which the overall success of the business is at risk. http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php/Personnel_Management

-It is said that personnel management is the foundation of a company. In which, without this the company will not succeed and it will be hard to reach its goals.

Administrative discipline of hiring and developing employees so that they become more valuable to the organization. It includes (1) conducting job analyses, (2) planning personnel needs, and recruitment, (3) selecting the right people for the job, (4) orienting and training, (5) determining and managing wages and salaries, (6) providing benefits and incentives, (7) appraising performance, (8) resolving disputes, (9) communicating with all employees at all levels. http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/personnel-management.html

-Personnel Management includes making job analyses so that a company will know what is the needs of the company itself and its employees.

Business Definition for: Personnel Management

* the part of management that is concerned with people and their relationships at work. Personnel management is the responsibility of all those who manage people, as well as a description of the work of specialists. Personnel managers advise on, formulate, and implement personnel policies such as recruitment, conditions of employment, performance appraisal, training, industrial relations, and health and safety. There are various models of personnel management, of which human resource management is the most recent. http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/Personnel+Management.htm

-The business world describes personnel management as the responsibility of supervisors or managers. In which supervisors or managers will advise and of course make decisions for the sake of the company as well as the employees under his/her level.

Personnel Management is responsible for the provision of specialist personnel and human resource management advisory services to departments, and the development and implementation of a relevant, coherent and modern framework of employment policies and practices throughout the University.
Each member of Personnel Management is responsible for the provision of these services to a number of departments. This distribution is known as the Personnel Management Portfolio.

Personnel Management is also responsible for the delivery of the Human Resource Strategy and associated programmes of work. http://www.staffs.ac.uk/uniservices/personnel/management/index.php

-Like the above description of personnel management, it is stated that it is responsible for making decisions and it is also added that it is also responsible for making and deciding what strategies should be used between different departments of a certain company.

Personnel management is concerned with the effective use of the skills of people. They may be salespeople in a store, clerks in an office, operators in a factory, or technicians in a research laboratory. In a business, personnel management starts with the recruiting and hiring of qualified people and continues with directing and encouraging their growth as they encounter problems and tensions that arise in working toward established goals. http://www.zeromillion.com/business/personnel/personnel-management.html

-The above statement states that personnel management that is concerned with the best use of the people inside a firm. It may range from the lowest level in the company to the highest. Thus, hiring the most qualified appliocant will be the best for the company.

HRM

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices conform to various regulations. http://managementhelp.org/hr_mgmnt/hr_mgmnt.htm

-HRM is broad and it holds a very huge portion of a certain firm. One of the activities that HRM does is deciding on what the company needs.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization. Human Resource Management can also be performed by line managers. http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm

-It is described very brief, in which it is said that HRM focuses mostly on recruiting, hiring and supervising or giving direction on employees.

Human Resource Management is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of highly committed and capable workforce, using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques. http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=bc8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=Human+Resource+Management&source=bl&ots=t0IGMS_-5l&sig=mkGU-Q_D-2ewBd9HELW6MJ-1k04&hl=tl&ei=Dmq4SvmuIsn7tgfjw4DuDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=&f=false

-It is described as having a deep approach to employment, in which it is looking forward for achieving and having the very best workforce.

Human resource management is resource-centered activity providing and deploying human resources catering to management needs. It is aligned to management interest being a management activity. Demand rather than supply is the focus of the activity. HRM emphasized on planning, monitoring and control. Human resources issues and problem solving is undertaken with other members of the management. Management of human resources is similar to other aspect of management in the organisation and an integrated part of it. http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=937653&promo=100511

-I agree with the description, except for this line, "HRM emphasized on planning, monitoring and control." Because we all know that we can never control human beings.

The human resource function has gone from the traditional hire and fire role to a strategic partner at the table with finance, operations and other business centers that are not centers of profit for the organization. The job of HR, as is the job of all such departments, is to ensure that the business gets the most out of its employees. Another way to put this is that the human resource management needs to provide a high return on the business's investment in its people. This makes it a highly complex function - because it deals with not just management issues but human ones as well. http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=937441&promo=100511

-HRM is responsible for all of the departments and it should have the most out of its employees.

Insource and Outsource

2009-08-30T20:37:00.004-07:00

OUTSOURCING
Outsourcing literally means getting source from outside. The term is referring to sub-contracting of a set of functions or processes by one organization or company to another, or to a group of people. The said organization is often in another location, or another country.

Outsourcing is an arrangement in which one company provides services for another company that could also be or usually have been provided in-house. Outsourcing is a trend that is becoming more common in information technology and other industries for services that have usually been regarded as intrinsic to managing a business. In some cases, the entire information management of a company is outsourced, including planning and business analysis as well as the installation, management, and servicing of the network and workstations. Outsourcing can range from the large contract in which a company like IBM manages IT services for a company like Xerox to the practice of hiring contractors and temporary office workers on an individual basis.

Outsourcing is practiced as a very good business strategy. Especially in the current economic scenario, since it enables a single organization to focus on most potential areas, in which they’re competent at. It also set the firm free from resource and labor intensive functions, which are now performed by trained personnel in a much lower costs. The processes or activities that are being outsourced could range from customer service and telemarketing, to IT management, software development, market research and even financial portfolio management.

Outsourcing is subcontracting a process, such as product design or manufacturing, to a third-party company. The decision to outsource is often made in the interest of lowering cost or making better use of time and energy costs, redirecting or conserving energy directed at the competencies of a particular business, or to make more efficient use of land, labor, capital, (information) technology and resources[citation needed]. Outsourcing became part of the business lexicon during the 1980s. It is essentially a division of labour.Out sourcing in the information technology field has two meanings One is to commission the development of an application to another organization, usually a company that specializes in the development of this type of application. The other is to hire the services of another company to manage all or parts of the services that otherwise would be rendered by an IT unit of the organization. The latter concept might not include development of new applications.

Outsourcing refers to a company that contract with another company to provide services that might be performed by in-house employees. Many of the large companies today outsource jobs such as, the very popular in the Philippines, call center services, e-mail services, and payroll. These jobs are handled by separate companies that are specialized in the certain service, and are mostly located overseas.

Outsourcing involves the transfer of the management and/or day-to-day execution of an entire business function to an external service provider. The client organization and the supplier enter into a contractual agreement that defines the transferred services. Under the agreement the supplier acquires the means of production in the form of a transfer of people, assets and other resources from the client. The client agrees to procure the services from the supplier for the term of the contract. Business segments typically outsourced include information technology, human resources, facilities, real estate management, and accounting. Many companies also outsource customer support and call center functions like telemarketing, CAD drafting, customer service, market research, manufacturing, designing, web development, print-to-mail, content writing, ghostwriting and engineering. Offshoring is the type of outsourcing in which the buyer organization belongs to another country.

Outsourcing and offshoring are used interchangeably in public discourse despite important technical differences. Outsourcing involves contracting with a supplier, which may or may not involve some degree of offshoring. Offshoring is the transfer of an organizational function to another country, regardless of whether the work is outsourced or stays within the same corporation or company.

With increasing globalization of outsourcing companies, the distinction between outsourcing and offshoring will become less clear over time. This is evident in the increasing presence of Indian outsourcing companies in the United States and United Kingdom. The globalization of outsourcing operating models has resulted in new terms such as nearshoring, noshoring, and rightshoring that reflect the changing mix of locations. This is seen in the opening of offices and operations centers by Indian companies in the U.S. and UK. A major job that is being outsourced is accounting. They are able to complete tax returns across seas for people in America.

Multisourcing refers to large outsourcing agreements (predominantly IT). Multisourcing is a framework to enable different parts of the client business to be sourced from different suppliers. This requires a governance model that communicates strategy, clearly defines responsibility and has end-to-end integration.

Strategic outsourcing is the organizing arrangement that emerges when firms rely on intermediate markets to provide specialized capabilities that supplement existing capabilities deployed along a firm’s value chain (see Holcomb & Hitt, 2007). Such an arrangement produces value within firms’ supply chains beyond those benefits achieved through cost economies. Intermediate markets that provide specialized capabilities emerge as different industry conditions intensify the partitioning of production. As a result of greater information standardization and simplified coordination, clear administrative demarcations emerge along a value chain. Partitioning of intermediate markets occurs as the coordination of production across a value chain is simplified and as information becomes standardized, making it easier to transfer activities across boundaries.

Due to the complexity of work definition, codifying requirements, pricing, and legal terms and conditions, clients often utilize the advisory services of outsourcing consultants (see sourcing advisory) or outsourcing intermediaries to assist in scoping, decision making, and vendor evaluation.

The competitive pressures on firms to bring out new products at an ever rapid pace to meet market needs are increasing. As such, the pressures on the R&D department are increasing. In order to alleviate the pressure, firms have to either increase R&D budgets or find ways to utilize the resources in a more productive way. There are situations when a firm may consider outsourcing some of its R&D work to a contract research organizations or universities. Reasons why a firm could consider outsourcing are:

* new product design does not work
* project time and cost overruns
* loss of key staff
* competitive response
* problems of quality/yield.

The key drivers for R&D outsourcing are emerging mass markets and availability of expertise in the field. In this context, the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, provide huge pools from which to find talent. Both countries produce over 200,000 engineers and science graduates each year. Moreover both countries are low cost sourcing countries. Other strategic drivers for outsourcing R&D are access to expertise and intellectual property, filling gaps in the capabilities of the R&D function, managing risk better, reducing the time to market, and focusing on the core competence or activities of the firm.

ADVANTAGE
There are many reasons that companies outsource various jobs, but the most known reasons are:

The advantage seems to be the truth that it usually saves money. Some of the companies that provide outsourcing services are able to do the work for much less money, because they don't have to give benefits to their workers and have more numbers of over the head expenses to worry about.

Outsourcing also enables companies to focus on other business issues while having the details taken care of by outside experts. This means that a large amount of resources and attention, which might fall on the shoulders of management professionals, can be used for more important, broader issues within the company. The skilled company that handles the outsourced work is often simple, but often has world-class capabilities and has access to new technology that a certain company couldn't afford to buy for their own. Another thing, if a company is looking forward to expand; outsourcing is also cost-effective way to start building branches in other countries.

The following are the advantages of outsorucinga ccording to wikipedia:

Cost savings

The lowering of the overall cost of the service to the business. This will involve reducing the scope, defining quality levels, re-pricing, re-negotiation, cost re-structuring. Access to lower cost economies through offshoring called "labor arbitrage" generated by the wage gap between industrialized and developing nations.

Focus on Core Business

Resources (for example investment, people, infrastructure) are focused on developing the core business. For example often organizations outsource their IT support to specilaised IT services companies.

Cost restructuring

Operating leverage is a measure that compares fixed costs to variable costs. Outsourcing changes the balance of this ratio by offering a move from fixed to variable cost and also by making variable costs more predictable.

Improve quality

Achieve a step change in quality through contracting out the service with a new service level agreement.

Knowledge

Access to intellectual property and wider experience and knowledge.

Contract

Services will be provided to a legally binding contract with financial penalties and legal redress. This is not the case with internal services.

Operational expertise.

Access to operational best practice that would be too difficult or time consuming to develop in-house.

Access to talent

Access to a larger talent pool and a sustainable source of skills, in particular in science and engineering.

Capacity management

An improved method of capacity management of services and technology where the risk in providing the excess capacity is borne by the supplier.

Catalyst for change

An organization can use an outsourcing agreement as a catalyst for major step change that can not be achieved alone. The outsourcer becomes a change agent in the process.

Enhance capacity for innovation

Companies increasingly use external knowledge service providers to supplement limited in-house capacity for product innovation.

Reduce time to market

The acceleration of the development or production of a product through the additional capability brought by the supplier.

Commodification

The trend of standardizing business processes, IT Services and application services enabling businesses to intelligently buy at the right price. Allows a wide range of businesses access to services previously only available to large corporations.

Risk management

An approach to risk management for some types of risks is to partner with an outsourcer who is better able to provide the mitigation.

Venture Capital

Some countries match government funds venture capital with private venture capital for startups that start businesses in their country.

Tax Benefit

Countries offer tax incentives to move manufacturing operations to counter high corporate taxes within another country.

Most of the outsourcing firms are based in the USA, some in the United Kingdom or Australia and a small number in Europe, while most of the outsourced workforce is Asian.

There have been loud protests against outsourcing in the USA, and more recently in Australia, due to cases like dislocation of some professionals, which is usually caused by shifting of processes and when this happen jobs are of course shifted too. But, this kind of problem is mostly temporary and there are very few skilled professionals who lose their jobs because of outsourcing.

DISADVANTAGE
One of the disadvantages that outsourcing brings is, it often eliminates direct communication between a company or organization and its clients. This stops a certain company from building solid relationship with their customers, and it often leads to dissatisfaction on one or both sides.
Another disadvantage is the danger of not being able to control some of the aspects in the company itself, as outsourcing may lead to delay of communications and implementation of projects.

Thirdly, sensitive information is more vulnerable. This means that the company won’t be able to control the flow of information thus, leading to leakage of important information, which often is private.

The most critical is it may come that a company will become very dependent on its outsource service providers, which could lead to problems when the outsource provider backs out on the contract suddenly.

Though outsourcing may be proven highly beneficial for many companies, it also has its disadvantage. Thus, it is very important that each company should accurately provide solution to their needs to determine if outsourcing is a good option.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-outsourcing.htm
http://www.indianchild.com/outsourcing/what_is_outsourcing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid182_gci212731,00.html

INSOURCING
Insourcing is a business practice in which work that would otherwise have been contracted out is performed in-house.

Insourcing often involves bringing in specialists to temporary fill temporary needs or training existing personnel to perform tasks that would have been outsourced. An example is the use of in-house engineers to write technical manuals for equipment they have designed, rather than sending the work to an outside technical writing firm. In this example, the engineers might have to take technical writing courses at a local college, university, or trade school before being able to complete the task successfully. Other challenges of insourcing include the possible purchase of additional hardware and/or software that is scalable and energy-efficient enough to deliver an adequate return on investment (ROI).

Insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing; that is insourcing (or contracting in) is often defined as the delegation of operations or jobs from production within a business to an internal (but 'stand-alone') entity that specializes in that operation. Insourcing is a business decision that is often made to maintain control of critical production or competencies. An alternate use of the term implies transferring jobs to within the country where the term is used, either by hiring local subcontractors or building a facility.

Insourcing is widely used in an area such as production to reduce costs of taxes, labor (e.g., American labor is often cheaper than European labor), transportation, etc.

Insourcing at United Parcel Service (UPS) was described in the bestselling book The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman.

According to PR Web, insourcing was becoming more common by 2006 as businesses had less than satisfactory experiences with outsourcing (including customer support). Many outsourcing proponents responded to a negative consumer opinion backlash resulting from outsourcing their communications management to vendors who rely on overseas operations.

To those who are concerned that nations may be losing a net amount of jobs due to outsourcing, some point out that insourcing also occurs. According to a study by Mary Amiti and Shang-Jin Wei, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other industrialized countries more jobs are insourced than outsourced. They found that out of all the countries in the world they studied, the U.S. and the U.K. actually have the largest net trade surpluses in business services. Countries with a net deficit in business services include Indonesia, Germany and Ireland.

Insourcing is loosely referred in call centers who are doing the work of the outsourcing companies. Companies that outsource include Dell, Hewlett Packard, Symantec, and Linksys. The callcenters and technicians that are contracted to handle the outsourced work are usually over-seas. Customers may refer to these countries as "India" technical support if they are hard to understand over telecommunications. These insourcing companies were a great way to save money for the outsourcing of work, but quality varies, and poor performance has sometimes harmed the reputations of companies who provide 24/7 customer or technical support.

The Organization for International Investment, a Washington D.C. trade association, uses the term to describe the creation of jobs through foreign direct investment within the United States.

There are two views of the meaning of insourcing:

First, is the the type of insourcing that represents almost an opposite form of outsourcing. May be the most common definition is when companies look at the potential of employees inside the organization or company to find those who may be tapped to do certain jobs or functions for the said company. They may offer these employees extra training or they may just find the employees that already possess the skills to take on specialized work.

This form of insourcing has become fairly common as a money saving practice. Some company uses this method to also save money, because hiring new employees takes lots of money, and being able to redirect a current employee to new work can be much easier. Even if there is financial outlay for special training, a business may still save money, and it doesn’t have the negative connotations associated with many forms of outsourcing. Some companies practice this regularly and may boast to employees that they always promote from within, which can be an attractive point when employees are looking for jobs that will allow them opportunities to advance in their careers.

The second form of insourcing doesn’t utilize current employees but instead temporarily hires specialists to work onsite at a company. Occasionally these specialists help train employees on specialized equipment or methods, and part of this may also involve the leasing of various types of equipment. Even though the temporary employee comes from outside of the company, the fact that he or she is “brought in” means he can be considered insourced.
Sometimes the definition of insourcing is a matter of perspective. When a large company sets up part of their business in a foreign country, that company is outsourcing. However, to the country where the business is established, the new work there may be considered as insourced. This is a less common use of the term, but one that may help demonstrate the differing ways in which outsourcing work is viewed.

To have a better understanding and as a summary insourcing can be viewed as outsourcing as seen from the opposite side. For example, a company based in Japan might open a plant in the United States for the purpose of employing American workers to manufacture Japanese products. From the Japanese perspective this is outsourcing, but from the American perspective it is insourcing. Nissan, a Japanese automobile manufacturer, has in fact done this.
Setting up shop in another country, especially one that doesn’t have lower pay standards, (for instance Japanese automakers creating plants in the US) can prove of benefit to the company. Because they have created jobs somewhere else, the company’s products may be known more favorably. This may make consumers more likely to purchase products or use the company’s services because they know that part of their payment benefits their fellow citizens.
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci1185946,00.html
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-insourcing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insourcing

If I have to take side, I would prefer insourcing. Yes, it is true that outsourcing may be a good step to extend company reach but, I find it critical due to some of the parts of the project team will not be supervised, which I think will lower the quality of a certain product or service, in which the company provides. Another thing that disappointed me with regards to outsourcing is the security of information, which I think would put the company at risk. I have concluded how important information is to be kept within the company. But, with outsourcing, I find it risky.

I am more favor in insourcing, because the fact that they always find potential and skilled employees within the company first, before hiring new ones. Another thing is I think it will increase good relationship within the employer and employees, because the employee will feel that they are taken cared of by the company, due to special training given to them when they have potential. And as a result, a strong bond and trust to both sides, employer and employee.

ICT on SoNA '09

2009-08-28T05:49:00.002-07:00

What is ICT?

Information and Communication Technology is the study of the technology used to handle information and aid communication. The phrase was composed by the new National Curriculum documents for the UK in the year 2000. It is somehow, defined as the combination of Informatics technology with other, related technologies, specifically communication technology.

Information and Communications Technology - or technologies (ICT) is a broad term that covers all kinds of technologies for the manipulation and communication of information. The term is sometimes used in preference to Information Technology (IT), particularly in two communities: education and government. In the common usage it is often assumed that ICT is the same with IT; ICT in fact is any medium to record information, such as, magnetic disk/tape; optical disks (CD/DVD); and flash memory and even paper records. Other mediums are: technology for broadcasting information like radio and television. Moreover, technologies for communicating through voice and sound or images, which ranges from microphone, camera, loudspeaker, telephone to cellular phones. It also includes the wide variety of computing hardware just as Personal Computers, servers, mainframes and networked storage. The rapidly developing personal hardware market comprising mobile phones, personal devices, MP3 players, and much more are also included. The whole scope of application software from the smallest home-developed spreadsheet to the largest enterprise packages and online software services and the hardware and software needed to operate networks for transmission of information, again ranging from a home network to the largest global private networks operated by major commercial enterprises and, of course, the Internet. Thus, ICT makes more clearly developed that technologies such as broadcasting and wireless mobile telecommunications are included. http://searchcio-midmarket.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid183_gci928405,00.html

“Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now....”

This was the very first thing I’ve found, that I think was part of ICT since it is stated above that ICT means the study of technologies regarding communication. Filipinos are born family women/men, so communication is must, especially on those families who are separated by distances. Yes, it is true; there were lots of cases such as disappearing load. Good thing, the government was able to look at it and have found solutions.

“Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth,” says PGMA.

BPO(Business Process Outsourcing) is typically categorized into back office outsourcing - which includes internal business functions such as human resources or finance and accounting, and front office outsourcing - which includes customer-related services such as contact center services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_outsourcing

Outsourcing is contracting with another company or person to do a particular job. This means that a certain employee or personnel will do very good in his assigned job, since he/she is assigned due to his skill. The personnel’s focus will remain only in his job and is not under the management of any corporation or company.

III

“In 2001, I said we would finance fully automated elections. We got it, thanks to Congress....”

Automated election will be great help for the Filipino people, especially those who doesn’t know how to read and write. With this automation, numbers of voters will increase and we are very much hoping for a cleaner election and a faster result.

2009-08-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

Technology is a broad concept that deals with human as well as other animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment. However, a strict definition is elusive; "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include "construction technology", "medical technology", or "state-of-the-art technology".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology

As what I have seen and observed at the university, the hard wares were fine except that some of the computer units is only capable of receiving and sending information at a limit of 10mbps, which makes the internet connectivity to become slower and inaccessible.

The term innovation refers to a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental and emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. A distinction is typically made between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully. (Mckeown 2008) In many fields, something new must be substantially different to be innovative, not an insignificant change, e.g., in the arts, economics, business and government policy. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation

So, as from what I have understood, innovation is broad, meaning it covers a very large area, which may include one or all of the following fields: arts, economics, economics, business, design, technology, sociology, engineering and business. Innovation means creating and designing new ways and better ways to improve something. In the university's case is, its internet connectivity.

21st Century Corporations

2009-08-25T04:59:00.001-07:00

A hundred years ago, corporations are very much reliable on man power, meaning, people ware are the ones who made up a single corporation. A corporation as defined in dictionary is an association of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members. This may mean that corporations are made up of stockholders or is owned by many owners, in which the power and liabilities are divided on each of them.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/corporation

It is the most common form of business organization, and one which is chartered by a state and given many legal rights as an entity separate from its owners. This form of business is characterized by the limited liability of its owners, the issuance of shares of easily transferable stock, and existence as a going concern. The process of becoming a corporation, call incorporation, gives the company separate legal standing from its owners and protects those owners from being personally liable in the event that the company is sued (a condition known as limited liability). Incorporation also provides companies with a more flexible way to manage their ownership structure. In addition, there are different tax implications for corporations, although these can be both advantageous and disadvantageous. In these respects, corporations differ from sole proprietorships and limited partnerships.
http://www.investorwords.com/1140/corporation.html

As defined above, corporations are said to be the most known form of business. Stockholders are given equal rights, which mean that every stockholder have separate liabilities. These legal rights can separate the private lives of the owner/s. Due to the separation the owners will not be held personally liable for the corporation during a certain condition that will limit the company's liability.

EPHEMERAL

Corporations long before the birth of technology is fully dependent on people ware. Everything, from bookkeeping to converting data into information is done manually, in which has taken too much energy and time for employees and even the owners. Even the reach of their productions and services are limited by the distance.

Since technology have been roaming around for over a hundred years now, bookkeeping and conversion of data have become much easier and less energy and time consuming. Due to continuous development of technology, corporations have embraced its full benefit on them. The technology is made up of soft ware, hard ware and people ware. The studies of these have evolved corporations into a much higher level and into a much productive one. Hard wares, which are known locally as machines have enabled human to a more productive persons. Through machines, people are able to give their full time, energy and effort into much more important things on the corporation.

The technologies, particularly the Internet have given corporations a vast and wide reach to embrace its clients and its owners. This time, the evolving technologies have reached every corners of the earth, which forces the corporations to have a new set of rules and culture. Cultures or rules that may include: being computer literate of their employees.

The Internet as stated above has stretched the arms of every corporation to reach its full potential and to deliver its products and services all over and across the world. Now, almost all of the corporations or companies have established their own website, in order for them to advertised their services and products, and as the discovery of the use of the internet, it has even evolve for something helpful for both client and server.

To survive and thrive in this century, managers will need to hard-wire a new set of rules and guideposts into their brains. Not so long ago, for example, leaders believed that building assets over the long haul guaranteed competitive advantage. In this new century, success will go to the companies that partner their way to a new future, not those that put heavy assets onto their balance sheets. Leaders once thought that creating intense rivalries among competitors motivated their employees and assured success. But in the days to come, a company's fiercest competitor might also be its most important collaborator. Since the dawn of trade, every business leader has wanted to build an enduring enterprise. In the new century, though, many companies will be intentionally ephemeral, formed to create new technologies or products only to be absorbed by sponsor companies when their missions are accomplished.

Many factors, from the need to expand beyond national borders to the inexorable shift toward intellectual capital, are driving change, but none is more important than the rise of Internet technologies. Like the steam engine or the assembly line, the Net has already become an advance with revolutionary consequences, most of which we have only begun to feel.

Leading-edge technology will enable workers on the bottom rungs of the organization to seize opportunity as it arises. Employees will increasingly feel the pressure to get breakthrough ideas to market first. Thus, the corporation will need to nurture an array of formal and informal networks to ensure that these ideas can speed into development. In the near future, companies will call on outside contractors to assemble teams of designers, prototype producers, manufacturers, and distributors to get the job done. Emerging technologies will allow employees and freelancers anywhere in the world to converse in numerous languages online without the need for a translator.

That rapid flow of information will permeate the organization. Orders will be fulfilled electronically without a single phone call or piece of paper. The ''virtual financial close'' will put real-time sales and profit figures at every manager's fingertips via the click of a wireless phone or a spoken command to a computer. ''We don't have science-fiction writers who have seen and written this future,'' says Lowell Bryan, a consultant who leads McKinsey & Co.'s Global New Economy practice. ''Everything we see leads to greater diversity, greater choice, a far more integrative economy, yet more individualism.''

In the future it is foreseen that corporations will more likely to become web, as in the web of spiders, which is able to criss-cross its reach from different parts of the world.

The following are the said usage of Internet for the future corporations:

It's more about bits, less about atoms.

A corporation’s position on the market is no longer measured by its size, instead, they would only be measured through its profitability, in which profitable enterprises will manage data, or information, instead of focusing only on managing the corporation's physical assets. Good management of information can result to good decision making thus, allows an upstart to beat an established player; it can also give an incumbent vast advantages. By using information to manage themselves and better serve their customers, companies will be able to do things cheaper, faster, and with far less waste.

It's mass customization.

Internet can be way of showcasing consumer’s reaction or suggestion of a certain product or service of a corporation, which will lead to a more reliable and good quality of products or services. This will also give the corporation what their consumer needs and wants.

It's dependent on intellectual capital.

The advantage of bringing breakthrough products to market first will be shorter-lived than ever, because technology will let competitors match or exceed them almost instantly. To keep ahead of the steep new-product curve, it will be crucial for businesses to attract and retain the best thinkers. The old command-and-control hierarchies, with their civil-service-like wages, are fast crumbling in favor of organizations that empower vast numbers of people and reward the best of them as if they were owners of the enterprise.

It's global.

In the beginning, the global company was defined as one that simply sold its goods in overseas markets. But as of today, corporation are able to sold their products and services all across the world.

It's about speed.

All this work will be done in an instant. ''The Internet is a tool, and the biggest impact of that tool is speed,'' says Andrew S. Grove, chairman of Intel Corp. (INTC) ''The speed of actions, the speed of deliberations, and the speed of information has increased, and it will continue to increase.'' That means the old, process-oriented corporation must radically revamp. With everything from product cycles to employee turnover on fast-forward, there is simply not enough time for deliberation or bureaucracy.

DIGITIZATION.

Just as the smaller companies will use technology to gain economies of scale, larger companies will harness technology to reduce the costs of complexity. At the very core of the 21st century corporation is technology, or what most people today call digitization. Put simply, digitization means removing human minds and hands from an organization's most routine tasks and replacing them with computers and networks. Digitizing everything from employee benefits to accounts receivables to product design cuts time, cost, and people from operations, resulting in huge savings and vast improvements in speed'

CULTURAL CHANGE.

The potential for productivity gains is everywhere, in every process, in every industry. In the years to come, large incumbent corporations that get it will be the greatest beneficiaries of the Net, not the dot-com insurgents that once garnered all the publicity and market valuations.

Despite a handful of leading-edge companies, the true 21st century corporation, at least as it will eventually emerge, does not yet exist. But there is no one company today that embodies all the possibilities and promise of the super efficient 21st century corporation.

Through this consumers and clients would be able to know the truth about the products or services offered. Frictions will be eliminated and consumers can even decide through other peoples feedback on the said product or service.

CONNECTIONS

True 21st century corporations will also learn to manage an elaborate network of external relationships. That far-reaching ecosystem of suppliers, partners, and contractors will allow them to focus on what they do best and farm everything else out. And it will let them quickly take advantage of fleeting opportunities without having to tie up vast amounts of capital. Outsourcing and partnering, of course, are hardly new. But in the coming century, such alliances will become more crucial.

TALENT HUNT

Through technology, corporations would be able to find potential workers all over the world. This would both benefit people and the corporation itself. Due to online job hunting and online job interview, cost will be reduced or even eliminated.
http://www.businessweek.com/common_frames/ma_0035.htm?/2000/00_35/b3696011.htm

Downsizing

2009-08-12T04:59:00.003-07:00

Downsizing may be described as reducing the scope or scale of a certain company or an organization. The very known way to downsize is deducting the workforce or simply called human resource.This is to improve its performance and profitability as well as to reduce its financial costs.

AT&T Corp. is a based telecommunications giant which had undergone downsizing.The steps they have taken in consideration to be able to reduce their scope:

Workforce Planning

This plan is a system, in which employees are graded or evaluated by their managers. Employees are ranked accordingly with regards to their performance. This is done so that when downsizing comes, the employees would be able to have perceptions or would be able to know the possibility of them being laid off. This way, employees would give their best to stay on the job.

Employees are given chance to move out of the bottom bracket. Each employee will have a grade of A, B or C. Grade A workers are carefully handled and can possibly be promoted so that when downsizing happens they do not jump ship, as the top talent in other companies often do. Grade B workers, however, are counseled on what they need to do to keep up with those A's or better be one of them. Grade C workers needs to improve, then make a move to be better. HR monitors the ranking and grading system to make sure that employees are evaluated fairly and consistently. HR also checks that managers are keeping the A players challenged and satisfied.

Training and Skills Assessment

This process lets the company know what other things can their employee do. This training program can develop an employee's skill. Retraining and outplacement assistance programs are an effective way for HR to risk itself into the planning of a downsizing effort. A good skills-training program may even open opportunities within the company to downsized workers. Human resource managers can reassess workers' skills so they will not lose hard working and/or motivated employees in this type of situation. But this doesn't mean that workers who are not doing their job well will be unqualified to do other jobs.

Another benefit of having training and skills assessment program is the increase of participation, thus, considering extended access to the programs until well after workers are laid off, will be given time to recover from the emotional blow of being laid off. This way a company would be able to gain back the trust of both survivors and non-survivors.

Open Communication

Communication is defined as the process of transferring information from one entity to another. A from what we all know, it is very important to keep the good relation ship between two or more entities.

Communication is the key when it comes to downsizing. Employees tend to look and find signs that the management is hiding information from them. Workers worry less when management is open, honest and generous.

The Future

Thinking of the future, with regards to the question, "Will downsizing happen again?"

An honest answer to this question would be a help to the company as long as it is stressed that every workers or employees should work for the companies goals.

Straightforward answers or responses is a big help to prepare employees for the possibility of future workforce cuts or lay offs.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_6_44/ai_54994203/pg_3/?tag=content;col1

Downsize can be caused by one or all of the following:

Reduce costs

To reduce cost may talk of financial issues of a certain organization. In which, the said company couldn't sustain or it does not have the power to pay for its people and liabilities. In shortest term bankruptcy.

Decision making

Organizations tend to reduce the level or layers of management, in order to speed up its decision making. Instead of having too much numbers of manager,a company will choose to have lesser number of them. So, an organization would be able to speed up and less time would be used in decision making.

Focus

This means that the company would be able to put their whole time on developing the products or services they are good at.

Let us take for example, the Philippines, it is a tropical country, thus, producing tropical fruits such as bananas is the best way to increase its profit with regards to exporting. Since, Philippines can have full profit in producing bananas, why would it risk on trying to produce non-tropical fruits like apple or strawberries.

Positive response

Since the company is already focused on producing products or providing services their good at, stock holders would give their full trust on the said company, thus, ensuring them that their investment would not just slip away like the wind.

Better Productivity

Increasing a company's productivity may var from the costs that's been decreased and controlled. Another view would be, when an organization had already identified where the focus should be and stock holders have given their trust then the company would be able to start the business or increase the productivity thus, increasing its profit.

Now, that we have discussed about the cause or causes of downsizing. Let us talk about its effect. Effects can either be bad or good, but it is expected to be good on the company all in all. The effects are divided into two:

Employee Morale

Reputation

The organizations reputation as good employer will suffer. This is because of having to reduce employees, that may be or may not be a good employee. When a company have already undergone downsizing and is starting to grow again, of course they would need new employees. Since, they have already fired employees before, applicants would fear that downsizing would happen again then they would have to leave the job.

Policies

Change in policies will of course occur, due to change of scope or scale. Those policies that can only be applied to large scopes are omitted and new policies will be implemented for those employee who have survived and keep their jobs.

Motivation

Motivation will be disrupted. This effect can apply for those who were able to keep their job or simply called survivors. This disruption may range from political behaviors such as anger and fear, in which may lead to poor quality of customer service.

Psychological Contract

Laying off of employees will violate the psychological contract between employers and employees. Psychological contract is described as mutual beliefs of the employer and employees obligations, it is not a formal contract therefore it is not a violation of a certain country bill. But it still is a bad effect, because the trust of a certain employee will be destroyed.

Stress

Due to adjustment in longer working hours, the re-designed jobs and the uneasiness of thinking and fear of future downsizing, survivors will tend to experience stress.

Workforce Quality

Lost of skilled employees

Because of voluntary resign or early retirement, chances are, good employees, which is usually marketable employees, tend to leave or give up the job. Even worse is, the organization would have to hire them back, which may lead to a much higher cost.

http://www.authorstream.com/presentation/edwinlee-111819-downsizing-hr-business-finance-ppt-powerpoint/

How USeP can help..

2009-07-22T07:33:00.003-07:00

My dream job is to become a game developer in the near future. As I have described in my older post, what a game developer does, a game developer is the one who develop games, which will need a vast knowledge in programming, graphics design and a very wide imagination. While developing a game, you will be on a team, so good skills in communication and management is also needed. Another factor you should have is to have a very long patience, which may be equal to infinity or more than that, because developing a game is a never ending scheme. In the sense that once the game has been released, players or gamers will always find ways to cheat on the game, which is technically called bugs. This is another job for a game developer, to remove bugs and modify the game, which I find interesting and challenging.

So, how will the university help me reach this dream?

I still am currently studying at the University of Southeastern Philippines, which means my dream is still under construction. I find school as the foundation of the building I'm trying to pursue and build, thus a good school will be a good way to start a high and stable building.

The school has been a good help to me for the past two years, that may range from telling me what IT really means and what should IT graduates become in the future.

Honestly, when I graduated from high school, I have no idea what course to take.

First on the list was, nursing. That time Bachelor of Science in Nursing was very demanding, almost half of my high school classmates took up the course, but I was never really attracted to nursing. It's not because I don't like blood and flesh or something like that, its just that I don't like memorizing words and medical terms. I know I'm being foolish but it was really the true reason.

Second was, HRM (Hotel and Restaurant Management), simply because I'm a noob when it comes to cooking, so I would like to take up HRM major in culinary arts. But, I was not able to take the course, because I have to do some sacrificing for my older sister's studies (Oh! I'm such a loving sister).

Then, there came a friend of my father, one of our customer really, Gaga was studying in USeP. When she heard of the situation, she told my parents to send me to USeP and apply for a scholarship, so I would never have to stop my study. Well, thanks to her, I was able to continue studying. So, its time to choose my course, she has provided me list of offered courses. I didn't choose Engineering, because I find five years very long, not Education because I have low confidence, same reason for courses in College of Art and Sciences. So I have Institute of Computing (IC), nice name for a college department. There listed Computer Science and Information Technology, then my father suggested to take Information Technology. So there I go, I took up BSIT. While filling in a form, I remember her(Gaga) asking my mother, "Hawd man kaya siya'g math?"(Is she good in mathematics?). That confused me once, but I just ignored that.So when I passed the entrance exam, I have to pass another exam again, this time its oral, an one on one interview with a faculty member from IC (wah!!).

Outside the faculty room, there are two people there, I guess they're from IC, they asked what course I will take, then I answered IT. I was ,again, confused with their reaction (What's with IT?).

On the interview, I can only remember one question:

Interviewer: "Why took up Information Technology?"
Me: Because I want to be a Computer Programmer (wahaha).

Luckily, I passed the very last exam. So, I am an official USePian slash ICean now. Then, I've learned that the sum of the reasons why I didn't took up the other courses was in IT. IT in USeP might took you five or more years to finish it and I would have to let go of my low self-confidence, which I found good for me.

The teachers were good at there areas and I really have nothing against them. They taught well and when you passed their subjects you'll feel very deserving, because it's not easy to pass subject from teachers who doesn't like to teach on a crowded classroom (if you know what I mean). A high quality education that is. Press the students so that they will learn to take out their real potential.

The only thing that the university lacks, in my opinion, is its facilities. I mean, the university should provide us, students, a good learning environment and tools, which may be one or all of the following:

Classrooms please!! T.T
In IC, especially, the department has only two classrooms, which does not have a good ventilation, because of lack of electric fans, fans that won't even work. A very hot environment while studying is a bit hard for us, as students.

Water fountain please!! "o"
As from what we all know, water is the most essential mineral a human needs. The two rooms I'm telling was on the fifth floor, and when you reach that, you'll get very tired and thirsty, so why not provide another drinking fountain. I've also found out that there were only four water fountains, all in all, in the whole university.

Computers on the Lab
The computer lab was quite fine, there's air conditioner and some computers work but some don't. As a solution, some of my classmates will decide to bring their laptops or notebooks, so that they would never have to use one of the working computers so, other students can use it. Now, the problem is, the university prohibits the students to plug their portable computers on the universities power line.

WiFi passwords
I was quite surprised, when an engineering student asked me if I knew what's the password for the university's WiFi. Why password/s are secrets? A WiFi should be open for all of the university's student. If the university would just limit the people who access' the internet through WiFi, why establish a WiFi zone then? It's just a waste of money when only few are able to benifit from it.

I don't know what to call this last issue I have, so I better tell you the situation. I remember when I was still a first year student, I am sitting directly under a flourescent light, suddenly the flourescent started making noise, which sounds like strong voltage of electricity got into it. Then, it started making unnecessary light then it turns off. I felt safe when it didn't blow up. Another situation like this one is, smell of burning wires on the computer laboratory, particularly, Lab 1. There's no smoke but just smell of burning material, which I think is very dangerous.

So, thats all for my concerns about the university, on how will it be able to help me reach my dreams and be on top of it. It's all about facilities, good facilities and a good learning environment.

Risks Associated with Business and IS/IT Change

2009-07-10T18:17:00.011-07:00

Automation of 2010 Election

2009-07-05T05:05:00.010-07:00

Smartmatic International Corp. (Smartmatic) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Smartmatic International Holding, BV, a company organized under the laws of The Netherlands. Smartmatic has organized elections using its electronic voting solutions in Latin America, the Carribean, the United States, and Asia.

Total Information Management Corporation (TIM) is a domestic corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1981. The corporation is engaged in the business of information technology and service provider.

As of today, the conflict between Smartmatic International Corporation and TIM(Total Information Management Corporation) has not yet been ended. In an unknown reason MIT backed out on the said partnership thus, making the automated election on 2010 in risk. Now, the Commission on Elections is left with four choices, if ever Smartmatic won't make it up with TIM on July 10 this year. Choices would be:

1. A second bidding- in which the Comelec will find other corporation/s, other than the said corporations, which will take too much time as for the first bidding that took almost three months.(http://www.gmanews.tv/story/166531/2010-Elections-Poll-Automation-Timeline)

2. A negotiated contract-in which the Comelec would have to give the contract to another corporations without the second bidding, which will put the election in danger as for Smartmatic-TIM are the only partnership that has passed all of the Comelecs requirements.

3. Partial automation-the Comelec will only automate the election in selected areas instead of nationwide automation this is due to small amount of budget thus, resulting to inconsistency.

4. Revert to manual elections-which means we would have to go back to manual voting, manual tallying and the same old ways to buy and fly votes.

Speaking of the automated election, let us talk about what the automation of election will do. I hear or read people's opinions and reactions about the said election. Some people say that it would be easier to cheat on the election, it would be easy to hack the system etc. Well, This is what I say.

Automation on the 2010 elections would do good for our sake and for other Filipinos sake, particularly to those who doesn't know how to write or read.

Our native people are the ones who will benefit most, in which they will be able to choose their candidates and they will rest assured that it was the right candidate because they're the ones who will press them. I have seen on a documentary that our native people only uses stick in order to verify that the names written by their "trusted person"(that's with double-quotes) in their(native people's) ballots are the right candidate, whom they wanted to vote. Isn't this too unfair for them? They can't assure that it was the right candidate or name, because they can't tell and for people like us who knows how to read and write, it would be easy to make long names short or vise versa.

It was proven that numbers of voters increased at Autonomous Region Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on August 13, 2008. An automated election was conducted at the said region for the election on the same year.(http://www.smartmatic.com/pressroom/article/article/smartmatic-sahis-voting-solution-delivers-first-ever-automated-election-in-philippines-autonomous-r/)

On the other hand, disabled Filipinos would be able to vote without the help of their trusted person. The Smartmatic can provide voters with disabilities with voting machines. Buttons with specific shapes and colors, sip-and-puff devices and special earphones are just some of the features of these machines thus, giving every voter an equal right.(http://www.smartmatic.com/solutions/automated-election-system/single-view/article/the-new-standard-of-modern-democracy/)

Tallying would be more secure because every vote passed to the server will be immediately counted. Therefore, counting the votes or the wait of announcing winning candidates will not be prolonged. With this automatic counting of votes and tallying there will be no involved manual tallying thus, decreasing our teachers worries, that their lives would be in danger during the tallying.

Someone, on the internet reacted,"What would be the use of automation if there are still printed ballots for verification?". I don't mean to be rude, but the said verification is not like there will still be manual tallying again like before. But I guess, the verification means that a ballot will be printed so that each of the voters can verify that the candidates they have voted on the screen are the same as the ones on the printed ballots. If they see something wrong, then they can always change their votes. If there would be a manual tallying that will happen on the 2010 elections, maybe its just for the first time, then on the succeeding elections there will be no manual tallying.

Well, for me I'll go with automated election. Because I can see so many reasons why Filipino fails to vote or even register to be a voter.

First, it is far too time consuming and tiring to register. As for me, it even took me a whole day, just on registering for my right. The very poor regulations on the Comelec is very unfair. You see, I have been falling in line for how many hours, then a woman with a baby, who just arrived was accommodated first rather than me, I'm not being selfish, but it is their responsibility to register when they just turned 18, at their time. I believe that new voters or transferees should be the ones, who needs to be accommodated first.

Second, every voters lives are in great danger when election comes. Looking for your name on your scheduled precinct number also takes so long and there are cases that your name was not on the list and yet you have verified that you are a voter.

Third, Filipinos are incapable of voting due to disability or uneducation. They can't see, hear, speak, read and write.

So, by automated elections, numbers of Filipino people will take steps forward so that their voices can be heard. They will have courage to vote despite their disabilities. So lets not be selfish, let our native people and co-Filipino vote and speak for their rights. Additional, we already know that candidates can cheat with manual voting, why not see for ourselves if they can also cheat with automated election.

An update about Smartmatic-TIM partnership, the automation of 2010 elections will be pusued. As for the latest news I've heard and read, The two corporations were able to heal the conflict and it has been cleared that the conflict was due to the control of funds. Thus, the Comelec said that numbers of cases will be filed on both camps if they will choose to break-up again.(http://www.gmanews.tv/story/166518/Comelec-Its-all-systems-go-for-2010-poll-automation)

Online Jobs-Earn Money at Home!!!

2009-07-04T10:01:00.008-07:00

Web Searchers

To do this work, Web Searchers first have to qualify by passing the online tests. Qualified searchers then have access to workrooms where they can join a small virtual team of other qualified searchers to look for relevant information on a particular question. When you find relevant information on the Web you submit details of the reference via online team room for a reviewer to decide whether or not to accept it. you will be paid per accepted reference, paying more for highly relevant material.http://www.clicknwork.com/opportunities/web/

Online Juror

You are to review cases from Attorneys, who submitted their case information and questions for the jury on the OnlineVerdict.com website. Then, you’ll be alerted through an e-mail then all you have to do is respond immediately because there are only limited numbers of jurors. You’ll be asked to answer all the questions honestly. After you complete a case you will be paid for your time. Payments start at $20 per case and can go up to $60. Checks are mailed once a month to the address you have on file in your OnlineVerdict.com account. The number of cases you may be asked to review will also vary depending on the number of attorneys in your area who are using this service. http://www.onlineverdict.com/jurorshowitworks.php

Medical Transcriptionist

This job needs good English skills and a good sense of hearing. This job involves listening to the dictates of healthcare or medical professionals then, transforming it as written documents. It is not that simple because you have to understand each words and also, check the grammar thus, decoding it the right way. The transcribed audio will be made into patient files and treatment history. It works online via the Internet, this way the client will send an audio file, which will be the one you’ll need to listen then transcribe..
http://www.topmedicaltranscriptionschools.com/medical-transcription-job-description.html

Online Tutor

The duty of an online tutor is to provide quality online tutoring to all students thus, being familiar with all policies and procedures and to adhere with them. Reading and responding to all the assessments and being up to date with the newsletter and e-mail for any messages are also a duty. The salary will vary on how many hours the tutor spent on tutoring an online student. Payments are made out to you by check or electronically every 4th business day of the month.
http://www.tutor.com/apply/faq

Tester

You will be asked by website owners to test their site. You will judge their site then, provide them ways on how to make their website good. They also provide you a software so that you could record a video about the site your testing, through this it will be more easier for them to understand what you mean. You will earn $10 with this online job.
http://www.usertesting.com/BeTester/index.aspx

Online Juror appears the best online job for me. A very simple job that gives you large extra income. I find the job nice because the only thing you need to do is simply read the Attorneys case informations and by giving or sharing your thoughts and opinions, you'll get an extra income and hence, you can choose what type of case you would like to review.

http://www.worldwideworkathome.com/work-at-home.html

Green Computing Campus

2009-07-04T07:27:00.001-07:00

It has been three months past since March, when numbers of programs and marches were held to celebrate the earth day here in the Philippines. That one hour of darkness, that covers the houses of every participating household for the earth hour, which took place from 8:00 pm to 9:00 pm of the 28th day of March, 2009, was indeed a great deep breath for the earth. But, can’t we keep the earth from suffocating?

From smoking cigarettes to huge amount of carbon dioxide produced by factories, it is such a shame what we have done to earth. We have taken so much from the nature ranging from the lands where trees used to grow until stealing the wings of the birds. Thus, the pollution from sea to sky is now evident, that even a simple wind grows to destroy and murder numbers of household. The plague that we are experiencing right now and the rapid spread of sickness, isn’t it yet time to realize what we’ve done?

As an Information Technology student, I can say that the growth of Technology has pushed the nature to breathe in smokes. Since technology holds the biggest responsibility, let us make it as the best medium to spread the words to keep the earth from dying. As students, we can spread the words to our friends, classmates and suggest it to our schools or campuses. Here are some sites that may serve as a guide for your school:

What would I become?

2009-07-04T06:10:00.002-07:00

A good story line, nice graphics and characters, unique animation schemes and a bug-less programs is what a good game holds. The story of the games must reach the player’s mind as if it was somewhat real or life-like thus, making the game interesting. Graphics and the compilation of arts that moves through animation are the things that make it fun and a bug-less program is what keeps the player’s patience and makes them want to reach the goal of the game. Common game story line may involve strategic games, word games, dress up game and escape games, which is one of my favorites. Games enables player to be in control of the game thus, letting them act as the main character of the game. Through this gamers will be able to develop quick thinking to win the game.
Games, particularly computer games also called video games, were introduced as a new kind of entertainment on the year 1971. The growth of technology has made it more popular. As years pass, many kinds of computer games have been developed including LAN or local area network and online games. LAN games can be played on everyone’s desktop. Online games can be played with the aid of internet, this way a certain player can play with another player no matter how many miles they’re apart. These games have even reached the cell phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games).

The ones who make and develop games are called games developer or games programmer. The job needs a vast and wide range of imagination thus, making it possible to create a unique story and characters. A good skill in arts and animation would make the things on the developers mind to come into life. The sound effects can make the game exciting. This also helps to catch the people’s eyes because a good graphics is a big impact on how the game will sell. Of course, the most important skill to have is knowledge with regards to programming language such as, C++, Java and any other programming language. A good skill in arithmetic will turn your program to become bug-less.

A game developer meets problems during and after producing the games, thus the most important attitude a developer can have is patience. This will enable him to find and correct bugs that are found during or after the game have been produced. The pressure of meeting deadline may be stressful but, this is just one thing a good developer should overcome because a simple bug on the game will destroy the game thus, making the game boring and unfair for those who doesn’t know the bug yet, which will push them to stop playing or choosing another game, which are better than the one you have just developed (http://www.prospects.ac.uk/p/types_of_job/games_developer_job_description.jsp).

I both love arts and anime so I guess a games developer would be the best job for me in the near future. I would love to be part of a team that creates a new kind of game. Since I am a type of person who doesn’t want to be exposed in unfamiliar crowd, a job like this would fit me best. Another thing is, I would be able to give out my talent and skills with teammates, whom I already know and comfortable with. With this kind of profession, I can also work alone and I’d be able to work at home then, just sell my developed game to those who are interested.

COMDDAP Expo Davao

2009-07-03T03:23:00.003-07:00

COMDDAP or Computer Manufacturers, Distributors, and Dealers Association of the Philippines is an organization of corporations that provides IT solutions. they have been conducting expos all over Manila, Cebu and now Davao City.

The expo was held at the Apo View Hotel on the 2nd day of July, 2009. It is a three day expo (July 2-4, 2009) that showcases Information Technology (IT). In the hall, are numbers of companies were there to display their products in their respective booths. This event is not just a display of best and latest products offered by different businessmen that recognizes Information Technology as a need in fulfilling the full length of their business’ offers.

The very first session I joined was from Jupiter Systems, Inc. It is a 100% Filipino company, according to the speaker. He said that instead of importing systems or softwares from other countries, they export them instead. That means they are the ones who develop and export them for the use of other countries such as, Thailand, China, Hong Kong and United States of America. Their software, according to the speaker, follows a standard language system, which may include Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese.

After introducing himself (the speaker) and his company, he started discussing about a software for dealers, which is called ERIC Dealer Management System (DMS). It is a software that is being used by car dealers in order to keep track of sales, service transaction and other related. It is a twenty-four (24) year old software and now was fully developed by the said company. This software enables users to monitor their employees as well as their customers’ records. The software is enabled with accounting, manufacturing and inventory system. The system may offer records regarding supplies, sales monitoring and monitoring of the salesperson’s activities, through clock-in and clock out, which is known to us as log in and log out. The software also includes the monitoring of the owners car regular check-up thus, ensuring the safeties of their customers and even the brand of the dealers, who uses DMS.

Some of the car dealers, which have big names on the car market that uses DMS, as the speaker enumerate, are Mitsubishi, Honda and Mercedes Benz.
More on: http://www.jupitersystems.com.ph/

The second session introduces the HP Thin Clients. Thin Client, as the speaker says, is a computing device without the hard drive and fan. He also discussed the advantages of the said hardware. It has a very low power consumption that ranges about 11W to 20W, which is 80% lower than a desktop computer. The hardware was enabled with a higher data security in both hardware and software. It has no moving parts, meaning, every thing inside the hardware is attached to it securely and it will never budge no matter how hard you shake it and it is really is thin. Its height and length is half that of a normal system unit and its width is a quarter.

As I have mentioned earlier, the hard ware does not contain fan and hard drive. That means it would be much lighter and you wouldn’t worry about the temperature of the said hardware, that is because of its low power consumption thus, reaches only 40 degrees of the operations.
More on: http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/article/thinclients_consider.html

Microsoft Dynamics retail Management System or simply called RMS, was the third session I attended. This is a software from Microsoft that mainly recognizes the hassle of stores or a food chains, both for the employee and customers.

The speaker started the session by telling us a situation that is common at the supermarkets. He said, “Have you ever tried being on a long line for paying what you brought, then the person before you, who is currently attended by the cashier, realizes that he/she has forgotten something, and getting that product is actually five (5) minutes away from the cashier?.”

Well, the long wait is over with this Retail Management System developed by Microsoft. This software offers the following for its users:

• Streamline Operations- lets the owner view and update the inventory and track the inventory while the user id offline, reserve shipments, purchase order and share reports.

• Improve Profit Margins-easily adjust pricing, identify best selling items, track the return of investment and is employee productivity.

• Build Customer Loyalty-customize receipts, flexible pricing structures, which mean it would be easy to adjust the price if the customer has a discount or any other related.

• Manage Business, Not Technology-easy install and training of employees will not take a huge amount of time. It can also access online help and managing different inventory types is not a problem.

• Have a life outside your business-it eliminates the hassle of always being onsite thus, enabling the user to check his business’ branches or establishments anywhere and anytime.

The following are the key features of the RMS:
• Inventory control and tracking
• Purchase order
• Pricing, sales and promotions
• Sales tracking
• Powerful, flexible reports
More on: www.microsoft.com/philippines/

The fourth and the last session was from Spinweb Production, Inc., which identifies themselves as the web development arm of the nexus group. The topic was all about Open Source for Business Application. I have learned the true meaning of open source and it was a very big help for me, because I have heard of the words “open source” with regards to the one of the most talked about issue here in the Philippines. The web and the news tell that the automation of the 2010 election is an open source and I was curious about this. Well, thanks to the last discussion I have a clear view of what open source is. According to the speaker, open source is not free and it has a license, just like the commercialized software. To clearly define open source, he shared us the four freedoms. He even started the number from zero (0) instead of one (1). Zero, you can always run it for any purpose. One, you can study and modify it, then share it to everyone. Two, you can always copy it. And Three, you can always improve it and share it to everyone. The speaker also included the difference between free software and open source, which is open source are mainly talking about the development methodology while free software is a movement methodology, which may mean the passing of the softwares from different users to other.
More on: www.spinweb.ph/

The last session was ended by giving away Snitch chocolate and that’s how the day ended too.

A company's best practices in IS

2009-06-24T12:24:00.006-07:00

Hubport Interactive is an IT based company that enables a business to build an imperative subsistence in the online B2C (Business-to-Consumer) space. They empower their customers' websites to attain optimum function and revolutionizes business by creating online channels to effectively connect with existing clients and successfully tap new ones. Their accomplished E-Commerce Storefront encoders, Retail Shop Managers, and Online Marketing Consultants provide the technology backbone that launch prospering and profitable websites.(http://www.hubportinteractive.com/about-us.htm)

As the interviewee say, the company started only with eight people, which is composed of six(6) developers and two(2) designers. They don't really have an IS to keep track of their business' movement. They only use one(1) computer and basic softwares for their business. Records for the deadline is aided by pen and paper. From that very simple alliance they have evolve into something big that they even reached and surpassed the boundary of the Philippines. Now, they've been working with more or less one hundred and fifty(150) staffs. The speaker added that they started establishing and using IS for their growing business in the year late 2006, particularly on the month of November.

As he has discussed that the role of IS/IT in the business is, it is the core or the backbone of their business, in which these systems keep track of their customers, old and new, and their staffs. He define IT/IS very important, that is ranging from software, which is essential for website developing and it can identify errors and split them up much faster than usual, with manual; hardware on the other hand, acts as the server and it is necessary for the staffs to have at least one(1) computer each, these hardwares are connected to each other, which is technically called networking, particularly by WAN or wide-area network, they use WAN because the company is based from the main office, which is located at the United States of America or USA, through internet; peopleware as the speaker says, are the one who develops, secures and maintains hardware and software, thus software and hardware relies on the people ware. As he said, "Hardwares would just be there without peopleware". These three things work together to uphold the business thus, enabling them to reach the full functionality of their company so they can provide the very best solution they can give for their clients and customers.

Their best practices in IT/IS are discussed too. He said that the business keeps documentation, back up, security and recovery plan.

He has explained and stated situations for us to understand their best practices.

* Documentation

It is keeping track of everything, that is ranging from having a list of blocked sites in the company to logging in and logging out of the staffs. As an example, the System Manager blocked a certain site on the internet without knowing that some of the staffs are using the site. as expected the staff will come up to the manager and tell him the problem. With the list, the manager would be able to unblock the site immediately.

* Back up Internet Provider

This one speaks of their internet connection, since they are sub-company of an international company internet is essential to their business. Internet access keeps them in touch with their valued customers inside and outside the Philippines. Their internet connection or connections are provided by Bayan Telecommunication, Globe Telecommunication and PLDT or Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. The ITofficer showed us their system, he showed us how they keep track of the internet he also explained that their system is connected into one internet connection at a time, this means that they will only use the back up connections when the connection their using in the mean time has loss its connection or as the term called server down. They would have to plug out the cable for the connection then plug it in on the active server.

* Security

This is to secure the system itself. As the speaker says, since they are connected to he internet access to viruses and suspicious files can't be resisted, thus exposing the system to harm. This problem can be healed with fire wall and an anti-virus software. They update their anti-virus software daily to protect their server.

Security can also mean security from hacker and other. Since it can't be resisted that some of their staffs will have to take some files or print out files from their computers for security reasons the Central Processing Unit or CPU of their staffs respective computers does not contain DVD or CD ROM or even USB ports. When they have to get data or print out data, staffs would have to go to the IS manager because the file they need can only be taken out or printed out from the server unit.

* Recovery plan

This particularly describes their disaster recovery plan when ever an emergency or a disaster comes. These disaster may vary from black out or in case of fire. The officer didn't told us the steps with regards for their disaster recovey plan but he had, showed us the office of the IS manager and point out the papers on the wall, which I can't barely read.

As from what I have heard from the interviewee, keeping track of data is necessary for the company. They find IS very essential to their business thus, it is considered as the backbone of the business, that means without IS or IT their business was long gone and it will never grow from eight people to more or less one hundred(150) fifty staffs. I find the back up of server the very best practice they did. Because I have concluded from their companies profile that they barely rely on the internet to connect with their important and valued customers. It is a good thing that they've come up with the idea to have three(3) internet connection provider. This practice keeps them updated from other branches of the business all over the world and it also enables them to keep the communication between consumers and their company. I got my hands up for their data security, they have foreseen the risk of having networked computers, which is described as sharing of data from one computer to another. Since they have concluded that risk, they have come up with the idea to take out USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports and DVD/CD-ROM on the system units of every running computer on their company. Through this, they can control the data that comes out on their company, through this the IS manager can monitor the flow of data that's coming in and coming out of the company.

That's all for the best practices of our chosen company, Hubport Interactive who have given us the chance to speak with their IT officer. Thank You...^_^

First Day of Class: Reflection and Learnings

2009-06-22T18:20:00.002-07:00

My Reflection and Learnings
..bow..
.. ..

G reat and fun! That’s how our first class in MIS has been. It was all smiles and laughers from the moment the class started until it ended. Even when I was already outside the class room, I still can’t stop grinning; I can’t stop thinking how our teacher interpreted his students’ reaction when he gives a bunch of assignments.

Anal. Geom. was my first subject under the supervision of Sir Randy Gamboa then, followed by Stats and now in MIS. I am expecting that I’ll be able to understand MIS as clearly as possible and I hope that learning every single thing about MIS would be a lot of fun than the last two subjects I have gone under Sir Gamboa.

Management Information System or MIS deals with managing/supervising hard ware, soft ware and people ware. It has four basic keys, which are planning, directing, organizing and controlling. Other than these things, I have also learned the differences between managing and supervising. I have learned that managing is actually controlling while supervising is just giving directions and guides.

Blog was required to us by our teacher. So, I was obliged to establish a blog of my own. Then, I realize blogging is fun. Blogging as a way of sharing views, opinions and even experiences does works for me.

Over all, it was a lot of fun, really. The way Sir Gamboa welcomed the transferees was warm, really warm, and warm as they were in a hot seat. Then I have concluded that students in Tagum Campus love to sing. That’s all, I guess…^_^

A subject that I expect to give me jaw-aches, due to constant smiling and laughing; backaches because of being in a sitting position for too long; headache for squeezing out every English word from my vocabulary and maybe even heartache at the end of the semester (..haha..no way..not again !!!..haha)..^_^..

Good Day!!

http://sshanee.blogspot.com/

Managerial Roles and Leadership Roles

2009-06-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Managerial Roles According to Mintzberg (1973)

Managerial Roles involves: interpersonal roles, information processing roles and decision roles. The first activity, interpersonal roles, includes being the figurehead, the liaison and the leader. Second activity is information processing roles, in which the manager acts as monitor, disseminator and spokesman of the ones he/she handle. Finally, decision making, means that he/she has the responsibility to improve/change, handle the disturbance, allocates the resource, and the one who negotiates.

The clear illustration is that, as a senior manager enacts his/her role, these will come together as a generalized, which will reflect to the manager's competencies associated with the roles. In a sense they act as testing criteria for assessing the performance of a manager in his/her job.
Being the figurehead, the manager will have to be good physically and socially. Because the way he builds up inspiration, will inspire the people under his/her leadership and authority. The manager must have connection to its subordinates, so that he could get the trust of his/her subordinates. He/she has the task to tell the structure and environment of the place where subordinates will work, also to oversee and ask question to keep them alert. It is also the manager’s responsibility to discipline and promote its subordinates thus, trying to balance organizational needs for every operation.

Managers are made to become the center of information and communication. Skills regarding networking are huge help in order to maintain external and internal contacts because exchanging of information is important. A computers screen can be related to as the manager, simply because he seeks and receives information so he/she could evaluate performance, well-being and situation of the organization. This is through maintaining information system, by building contacts and training staffs to pass the information.

Managing include skills in spreading people’s views on the organization or the manager’s subordinates. These mass‘s views and opinions is broadcasted only on the organization. They don’t only influences its subordinates but, as well as the people around him/her. He/she needs to report the organizations performances and that would reflect that the manager is really an expert of his/her field.

They design and initiate the most of the controlled change inside the organization. Through this improvement will not be impossible for the company or the organization.
The manager can do all the design responsibility on selecting and even replacing subordinates. Another thing a manager can do is to empower subordinates with responsibility for the design of the improvement of the project thus, defining the limits or parameter and give the go signal.
Disturbances may come from staff, resources, and threats or may be because others had done mistakes or the last option has high risk consequences. The manager’s roles involve stepping in to calm matters and quickly thinking of having the very best solution when problems occur and this should be done in a limited span of time. As for example, think about an alligator behind you. What would be the very first thing you would do so that the alligator won’t count you in as its lunch? Of course, the very first thing you would do is to swim away from the alligator as fast as you can because it won’t be a help on thinking to drain the swamp.

The manager must have the ability to have an exact hypothesis regarding the allocation of all resources, including sale, staff or reputation. Allocation of resources can be described as scheduling own time, programming work and authorizing moves. Keeping an eye on the scheduling, the manager visually or physically sets the priority of the organization. The managerial task is to ensure that a certain work system is in place and to supervise staffs, directions such as what to do, who should do the task, what processing systems will be used.
Enabling huge decisions before implementing is a control on the resource allocation. This allows blending of interventions. An example is approving within a policy or budgeting process in comparison to other interventions. Because of having a short span of time, many issues and other staff’s proposals that cannot be rejected easily, the manager may decide to choose on the proposed rather than a new proposal.

As what from we have discussed above, a good managerial skill usually involves communication skills, a good manager must have good reputation and the way he/she should think must be broad so he could read the minds of the internal and external people. Managers are the ones who take charges over important negotiating activities, in order to have a good contract with other managers of organizations.

Information System Leadership
Leadership came from the root word lead, which literary means to guide or to supervise. Leadership can be stated as an act of influencing others thus, telling them advices and guidelines about what they should or not do. It is never an act of controlling a person. It may sound simple as it is but, being a leader is not a simple task because it needs a bunch of courage to encourage others, and as what from we all know encouraging someone or even making them realize what they’ve done is something we can’t easily do.

Information System Leadership or simply IS Leadership is a difficult task for many organizations because of the increasing dependency on Information System’s. IS is widely used both for the stability of the operation and for the authority of introducing business strategies. Information System Leadership is typical from leadership in general because in IS Leadership, the Chief Information Officer or CIO is likely to combine IS technical skills with a right understanding of the organization over all of its functions ranging from operational to strategic. The leadership that we know is also a combination of the leader’s skills, which generally talks about on how he/she handles his/her followers, and how he/she understands them. Thus, a unique leadership challenge, such as IS Leadership, existed due to the technology or even business interface. The need of having a better system has obliged developers to develop easiest way to lead and the breadth of the IS Leadership role states that IS Leadership should cover a wide range of information concerning the role and characteristics of a CIO, its competition with other top management team, and its reflection and impact to its subordinates and the other staffs of the organization.

References:
http://www.bola.biz/mintzberg/mintzberg2.html
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F17%2F34102%2F01624425.pdf%3Farnumber%3D1624425&authDecision=-203

What is MIS?

2009-06-22T03:18:00.000-07:00

To clearly determine Management Information System or MIS, let us first define each word that builds it.

Management
Management, from the word manages or managing is described as the act of handling, controlling and directing. It is typically composed of: planning, directing, organizing and controlling.

* Planning-act of thinking in advance.
* Directing-act of supervising or telling what should be done.
* Organizing-act of logically identify each elements.
* Controlling-act of being responsible for every move.

A student making his/her own routine is an example of managing or management.

The student needs to think of the things he/she should or has to do. That is eating, taking a bath, waking up, going to school and so on. This is where planning is done.

Next, is trying to follow the said schedule. Then, organizing comes, after thinking all the things he/she would do, he/she will put them up then, assign time and a span of time to spend for each actions to do. Logically, actions are should be done as follows, waking up, taking a bath, eating then going to school etc. Arranging the actions and assigning a span of time for each thing to do are considered as organizing.

But, the student can always change his/her schedule. It may be because there is a change of her mind or she just can't follow the schedule he/she had done. Thus, the will and right of changing everything up is called controlling.

Information
The television, the books you read, the radio and the internet are just basic medium of transporting information. The information you have heard of or read can either be fact or not.

Information as described in the dictionary is knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction etc. It is also associated as a factual data. Therefore, information is simply a processed data from the people around us. A data that has been sent or given to us by talking, listening and reading. It is considered information when it reaches our mind and it can only be considered as a fact when it is supported by any other information otherwise, opposed by other information.

System
System can be defined in its simplest way as the flow. Our example above can also be taken as an example of a system. Since management, are composed of systems such as, planning, organizing, directing and controlling. Another example is baking a cake. It has steps, which is followed by another and so on.

Now, that we have clearly understood each word that composes Management Information System or MIS. We can now say that MIS is simply handling the flow of information. Information can be transmitted through talking, reading and listening. The means of the three basic elements that build up MIS, which are soft ware, hard ware and people ware are defined as technology. Information Technology defines hard ware as the computer, soft ware as the programs used to transmit data and people ware are described as programmers and the users.

* Hard wares are those physical systems. It is visible through human's eyes and can also be manipulated by human themselves.
* Soft wares are data that are build up together to show or transport information with the aid of hardware.
* People wares are the ones who manages hardware and the ones who are responsible for building, developing and using soft ware. It is the only element that can't be managed and shouldn't be managed, instead supervised.

MIS refers broadly to a computer-based system that provides managers with the tools for organizing, evaluating and efficiently running their departments. In order to provide past, present and prediction information, an MIS can include software that helps in decision making, data resources such as databases, the hardware resources of a system, decision support systems, people management and project management applications, and any computerized processes that enable the department to run efficiently (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/MIS.html).

In businesses or companies, the department that handles computer systems, is called MIS department, which may mean Management Information Systems or Management Information Services. Some other companies call it IS (Information Service) or IT (Information Technology).

As from what we have learned and cited above, Management Information System or MIS is mainly and efficiently used in businesses and other large companies. It has been a huge help for managers or supervisors, since it is a new technology, it enables them to have a better decision making in less time and energy.

Before MIS had been developed, business computers are only used for computing payrolls and keeping track of receivable and payable accounts. These simple applications have evolved into many informative and helpful programs, especially when it comes to sales inventories and other data to help managing an enterprise large or small.

Today, the term is used broadly in a number of contexts and includes (but is not limited to): decision support systems, resource and people management applications, project management, and database retrieval applications (http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid80_gci214098,00.html).

Summary
Management is composed of planning, organizing, directing and controlling.
Information is data or knowledge we get around us.
System means the flow or process of some things.

Management Information System or MIS is handling the flow or process of transporting data or information. This is through hard ware, soft ware and people ware.

MIS is mainly used by businessman or managers to help in decision making, computing employees payrolls and even retrieving database application to keep track of the employees information or data as well as the customers order.

Conclusion
Hard wares can be managed by people; it can be controlled as well as soft wares. People ware may not be manageable, but they still are a part of the flow of controlling the transfer of data. They are the ones who make and develop programs, which are defined as soft wares. The hard wares are made by people too, which are the users medium to communicate with the soft ware then to the hard ware until it reaches the other users, which are also considered as people wares.

By the definition of management cited on the above entries, management includes not just controlling but also directing, which broadly means supervising or guiding and is not obliging anyone to follow the said direction.

Another thing is the ones who manage soft ware and hard ware is people ware. People ware has the biggest role when it comes to Information System, because as what from we all know, people does the data, people transmit it, people learn it and people had developed so many ways to transport data at the simplest and quickest way and even the cheapest way.

So, I believe that Management Information System is just right to be named as it is. Thus, the subject name fits the subject, which deals with planning, organizing, directing and/or controlling hard ware, soft ware, people ware.

The above statements are base on what I have understood on our supervisors and some details are from sites I have gone through. Just post a comment to correct my mistakes, if there are..^_^.. it is very much appreciated..
Thanks to www.javascriptkit.com for providing word counter for me..^_^

Academic Performance of BSIT-1 Online Gamers and Non-gamers in English

2009-06-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1

Introduction

In this present situation, the researchers can never deny the fact that, as level of technology continue to develop; everything around it grows with it. And so, the educational tools, work equipment and all others found remedies through technology as great help by using them more efficiency. Games also, from being just an ordinary one-set game or a video game with the use of joysticks now had evolved into a modernize online games, which links players from across the world together in the same type of game.

The popular term, online, was originally called the Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG or MMO). MMOG is capable of supporting hundreds or even thousands of players simultaneously, and is played with the internet. Typically, this type of game is played in a giant persistent world. MMO’s can enable players to be with and/or against each other on a grand scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. Most MMO’s require players to invest large amounts of their time into the game (http://www.wikipedia.com)

In relation, youth, especially students who are most likely exposed to entertainments, are the ones who were affected worst. They fall to be on the stage of addiction in online games. Research and analysis to these games is nascent, but critical. Games play to such excess that they die in the worlds, which is having the potential to draw almost everybody. Compulsive game playing kills the role-playing variety, they tend to have risk failing grades and withdrawal of financial results from tuition-paying parents.

Thus, online gaming does interfere some aspects in our life- including academic performances (Cyber Psychology & Behavior, Vol. 10, 2007 issue). On school days, keen boy who intend to play online games appear to have less time reading than those who didn’t (Sciencedaily, July 4, 2007).

Opposing to the above statements, an alternative possibility is that game play may be associated with positive features of development, as the games reflect and contribute to participation in a challenging and stimulating voluntary leisure environment. On several measures-including family closeness, activity involvement, positive school engagement, positive mental health, substance use, self-concept, friendship network, and disobedience to parents-game players scored more favorably than did peers who never played computer games. It is concluded that computer games can be a positive feature of healthy adolescence (K. Durkin & B. Barber, 2002).

Researchers in fields as divers of psychology, neurobiology and communication are all trying to know if games really affect the behaviors as well as the academic performances of the gamers, but these people didn’t have the answers yet. So for all concerns can assume is that a student who play too much, in a pattern that is similar to many behavioral addiction, which affects them academically and socially.

In the process of learning, a student may be well-equipped though not exposed on computers and computer games. And being one of the citizens of this country, where education is a very important variable in the acquisition and use of English. Mastery of English is the primarily function of length of schooling and quality education (IJBEB Vol. 5, 2002 issue). Well, obviously, such things will happen if the youth of this country didn’t know how to balance their time, as well as didn’t know that they should put their studies prior to other things, excluding family.

Thus, the study’s concern is the value of each topic presented and discussed in the simplest possible manner to help the reader learn the truth between the academic performance of online gamers and non gamers of BSIT-1 in their English 1 subject.

Review of Related Literature

The researchers were able to gather literatures that are related to the study which gives background to present study.

Computer gaming is an activity that is fought in United States as children and youth spend hours doing such routine. In fact, same victims suffer from addiction; the habit of online gaming was quadrupled when it became integrated with the Internet: resulting the concept of online gaming. In online gaming, user use the Internet in coordination with their personal computers to connect with other players in the world and then play the same game, which makes it more exciting and more time consuming. Thus, every student whom addictively drawn by such computer games will be likely looses their attention on their studies (http://www.wikipedia.com).

But before having a deeper understanding on what computer game does, the researchers and the readers must first be aware where it came from and where it started.

As being discussed by www.wikipedia.com, the first MMOG, and a major milestone in the creation of the genre, was the multiplayer flight combat simulation game Air Warrior, which first appeared in 1987, by Kesmai on Genie online service. They had gained acceptance in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was then pioneered by gem Stone series on Genie, also created by Kesmai, and Never Winter Nights, the first such game include graphics, which debuted an AOL in 1991.

The debuts of The Realm Online, Meridian 59 (the first 3D MMOG), Ultimate Online, Underlight and Ever Quest in the late 1990s popularized the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-palying Game (MMORPG) genre. The growth in technology meant that Never Winter Nights in 1991 had been limited to 50 simultaneous players (a number that grew to 500 by 1995), by the year 2000, a multitude of MMORPGs were each serving thousands of simultaneous players and in December 2007 EVE Online achieved new record with 41, 690. Retrieved on January 8, 2008, concurrent accounts logged on to the same server (http://www.wikipedia.com).

The popularity of MMORGs were mostly restricted to the computer game market until sixth-generation consoles, with the launch of Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast and the emergence and growth of online service Xbox Live. There have been a number of console MMOGs, including Ever Quest Online Adventures (Play Station 2), and the multiconsole Final Fantasy XI. On personal computers the MMOG market has alway been dominated by successful fantasy MMORPGs (http://www.wikipedia.com).

MMOGs have only recently begun to break into the mobile phone market, beginning with Clip Soft’s TibiaME, which is the first MMORPG to arrive on a mobile device. Smart Cell Technology is in development of Shadow of Legend, which will allow gamers to continue their game on their mobile device when away from personal computer (http://www.wikipedia.com).

World of Warcraft is currently the dominant MMOG in America, and with 10 million monthly subscribers worldwide, is the most popular Western title among MMOGs. The biggest MMOG in the world is Lineage 2 from South Korea, with over 14 milllion registered gamers, mostly in various Asian countries (http://www.wikipedia.com).

Cited above as years went by, and developers continue developing games, that will probably tempt everyone to switch on a new routine that includes online computer gaming. In addition, it does bring huge impact, which may result negatively to the studies of the students for the reason that they tend to give less time studying (Sciencedaily, 2007).

Theory Base

D.B. Weiss
If anyone has doubts that video games warrant serious reflection and examination as a creative medium, The Video Game Theory Reader will dispel them. If anyone involved in the creation of video games is looking for fresh perspectives on their art, they'll find them right here (http://www.wikipedia.com/Lucky-Wander-Boy-D-B-Weis/dp).

Eric Zimmerman
Computer and video games have been with us for only a few short decades. As with any young medium, important questions remain unanswered: What exactly are video games and how do they function? How do video games relate to other forms of media and culture? What is their effect on the minds and lives of players? And what are the larger implications for society? The Video Game Theory Reader begins to answer these questions, and in doing so, sketches out an exciting, emerging field of vital importance for the future of design, technology, and culture (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Zimmerman).

Robert T. Wood
The Video Game Theory Reader is a crucial and timely edited volume which focuses exclusively on the theorization of video games, and thereby makes great strides towards ameliorating a persisting gap in the academic literature (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-T-Wood).

Laurie Taylor
The Video Game Theory Reader serves as an excellent introduction to video game studies, the current positions in the field, and the current problems with video game studies (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaurieTaylor).

Conceptual Framework

Shown above is the schematic diagram in determining the effect of online gaming and not indulging these games to student’s academic performance in English 1. The independent variables are the Online Gamers and Non-gamers and the dependent variable is the Academic performance.

Significance of the Study

This research will be done in order for the concerned people to know whether online games really affect the studies of the students who intend to play. If it does, how huge would be the impact of playing online computer games on the academic performances of the gamers, specifically on their English 1 subject. We choose to find out the effect of online games by looking on the grades of the online gamers and non-gamers to prevent parents from being numb, when their advices are needed and to prevent the students as well as the researcher’s parents from worrying when there’s really nothing to worry. This research will leave learning about the truth of the impact of the playing online games prior to studies. We’ve conducted this study, so students like us would be able to know and to warn themselves about the consequences when student’s try doing new things, that when not controlled and handled well will soon became the student’s vises, which will then become the student’s greatest enemy, but student’s can’t just throw away because it is already the student’s best friend.

Statement of the Problem

The studies concern is to determine the negative or positive impact of engaging online games to BSIT-1 student’s academic performance particularly English 1 subject.

1. What are the average grades of all the online gamers and non gamers?
2. Is there a significant difference between the average scores of online gamers and non gamers?
3. What is the rate of their academic performance?

Authors:

Pulido, John Paul
Sacramento, Shane
Sanchez, Jonalyn