329“It’s the SYSTEM’s fault!”
“The SYSTEM is down.”
“My SYSTEM can’t be beat!”
“Don’t buck the SYSTEM.”Phrases such as these remind us that the term systemcan be used to refer to an information system with hardware,
software, and telecommunications components (discussed in Part I) or that the term systemcan be used to refer to
something much broader than an information system. For example, a systems perspective helps us to understand
the complex relationships between different business units and different types of events within an organization so
that when we change one aspect of a business we can anticipate the impact on the entire business. The ability to
manage organizations as systems with interrelated processes is crucial for success in today’s fast-changing
business environments.
Today’s business managers are being asked to play major roles in systems project teams with internal
information systems (IS) specialists and/or outside vendors and consultants, and one of their key roles will
be to help provide a high-level systems perspective on the business. Business and information technology
(IT) managers must work together to determine the best scope for a systems project to meet the business’s
needs, as well as the business’s requirements for financial returns on its IT investments. With IS personnel,
business managers will also help develop and review graphical diagrams of the ways in which the organization
currently works, as well as new ways. This chapter will therefore familiarize you with some of the specific
methods and techniques that software developers use to describe both current (As-Is) and future (To-Be)
systems in the abstract. In other words, this chapter is about design, whereas the next few chapters are about
construction.
Today there is also a heightened sensitivity to system security and reliability. At the end of this chapter, we
describe a variety of controls that are associated with best practices for system development and implementation in
particular. In Chapter 11, we will more fully discuss how a project manager needs to manage the business risks
associated with a systems project.
THE SYSTEMS VIEW
Peter Senge and other management gurus have argued that more holistic systems thinking is needed to enable
organizations to more quickly adapt to today’s complex, fast-changing environments. According to Senge (1990),
systems thinking is
- a discipline for seeing wholes
- a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things
- an antidote to the sense of helplessness one feels when confronted with complexity