Chapter 13 Exercises

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Chapter 13 Exercises

Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Principles of MIS

© 2005 by Jerry Post

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Using salary surveys and local advertisements, find typical salaries for various MIS jobs in your area.

Make a list of symptoms you would expect to see in a company that has centralized databases and MIS personnel, but has just decentralized its departments and users have just bought hundreds of new personal computers in the last three years.

Make a list of symptoms you expect to see in a company that is “too decentralized.” That is, company users are free to choose any hardware and software, and databases are maintained by each department. Data is shared through reports that are printed in each department and forwarded to other departments on paper. There is no central MIS staff and no CIO. Treat it as a company that started small using personal computers and grew but did not come up with a centralized information system approach.

Find at least two technologies that are being used to move data to centralized servers.

Find data on the number of computer science and MIS majors at your school for the past few years and identify any trends. How might these trends affect the job market?

Identify at least two tools that can be used to configure and manage personal computers from a central location.

Using the various salary surveys, compare salaries for small versus large businesses in your area. Briefly explain the differences. If possible, talk with employees at small and large businesses to see how the jobs might differ.

Technology Toolbox

Assuming that you work as a manager, create a set of mailbox folders to handle your expected mail. Create the rules that will move incoming mail to the appropriate folder.

Assuming that you are in charge of a sales division for a large company, create an e-mail rule to handle messages from customers. You have a couple of key clients that you have known for years, and they have a pattern of sending messages. For example, they send personal messages a few times a year, they send questions about price changes monthly, and once in a while they send complaints about late deliveries or quality concerns. Sometimes they send a new order directly to you, which you have to forward to the sales staff.

Create a project management analysis for starting a new company. Identify the major tasks and their dependencies. If possible, create the project in Microsoft Project (you can get a free demonstration copy). If it is not available, at least draw a Gantt chart by hand.

Create the Gantt chart for the development exercise using Microsoft Project. Assign resources at 100 percent as indicated and use resource leveling to determine the time it will take to complete the project.

	Name	Duration	Depends on	Resources
1	Feasibility Statement	5 days
2	Get hardware list and costs	1 day		Analyst
3	Count forms and reports	1 day		Analyst
4	Estimate development time	1 day		Analyst
5	Get benefits from user	1 day		Analyst
6	Create statement	1 day	2, 3, 4, 5	Analyst
7	Management Approval	1 day	1
8	Analysis	17 days	7
9	Interview users	7 days		Analyst
10	Evaluate competition	3 days		Analyst
11	Search for existing software	3 days		Analyst
12	Evaluate options	4 days	9, 10, 11	Analyst
13	Management Approval	1 day	8
14	Design	15 days	13
15	Design and create database	2 days		Analyst
16	Build forms	8 days	15	Programmer
17	Create reports	4 days	15	Programmer
18	Design application	3 days		Programmer
19	User approval	1 day	14
20	Management approval	1 day	19
21	Implementation	10 days	20
22	Purchase hardware	2 days		Analyst
23	Transfer data	3 days	22	Programmer
24	Integration test	4 days	23	Programmer
25	Train users	1 day		Trainer
26	Write procedures	1 day		Analyst
27	Transfer operations	1 day	24	Analyst,Programmer
28	Review	1 day		Analyst,Programmer

Using the data in the previous exercise, explore ways to complete the project earlier. Note that you can consider hiring more people, but there is a limit—adding more people to the project means you have to add more managers and increase some of the development times to compensate for the additional overhead.

Teamwork

Interview computer users and managers in a local firm (or your university) and determine the degree of decentralization in their information system organization. Talk to several users and see whether their perceptions agree. Are they receiving all of the advantages of centralization and decentralization? If not, how could the system be modified to gain these benefits without significantly increasing the drawbacks? Be sure to analyze hardware, software, data, and personnel.

Have each person select one country and find the average cost for programmers. Identify technology and telecommunication capabilities available. Identify social and cultural factors (such as education) that could affect programming abilities. Combine the data from each person and identify a nation in which you would want to establish an offshore outsourcing facility.

Assume that your organization wants to reduce costs of managing personal computers. Each person should identify one tool that can be used to improve centralized management control over the personal computers. Compare the costs and the potential benefits. Combine the recommendations for the products and select the most effective tools.

Have each person research one company and find examples of centralization versus decentralization conflicts or solutions. Combine the results and summarize them.

Assume that your team is managing a small company that needs a highly customized application to perform complex decision analysis. You have an initial guess that it will take a top-notch programmer at least six months to create the software. Assign team members to investigate the various methods of developing the software. Compare the costs and benefits and choose a method. Be sure to specify how the system will be maintained or modified later.

Write a plan for moving a midsize service company to an intranet and mobile-commerce-based information system, where as many applications as possible will run through browsers, and data will be accessible from anywhere in the company. What technologies will you use? What functions will you centralize or decentralize? How will you provide adequate security?

Rolling Thunder Database

Describe the organization of the existing information system. What changes would enable the system to run better? If the company doubles in size in three years, what organizational changes do you recommend for the information system?

How should the company handle typical information system tasks such as backing up data, creating employee accounts, maintaining hardware, selecting new hardware and software, and so on?

Would you recommend a centralized or decentralized approach to information systems at the Rolling Thunder Bicycle company? Who is currently in charge of the major components? What problems can we anticipate if we continue with the existing structure?

Assume users are complaining about lack of support from the MIS department. How can you improve MIS responsiveness? How can you do it without substantially raising costs?