MIS 2 - Assignment 3

Causes of Frustration

What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan? note: you are required to interview an IS professional/s for your answer ...(at least 3000 words)

When we say frustration we mean disappointment. The following is a definition I got from Wikipedia.
Frustration a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. Causes of frustration may be internal or external. In people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict can also be an internal source of frustration; when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, it can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual, such as a blocked road or a difficult task. While coping with frustration, some individuals may engage in passive-aggressive behavior, making it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of their frustration, as the responses are indirect. A more direct, and common response, is a propensity towards aggression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frustration

I just want to share this article on how to deal with frustrations.

The emotion you’re feeling is “Frustration”.

With a capital “F”. Maybe even add in some anger because you’ve been working really hard towards your goal or on a project and it just isn’t working. Or you feel like you’re stuck in a dead-end job and can’t find another one. And you may not even really know why. All you know is that you seem to be stuck and no matter how hard you try, you don’t seem to get anywhere. You’re just spinning your wheels in the mud and all you feel is pure frustration. Sound familiar?
This is the point where a lot of people will just say, “I Quit” and give up. Before you do though, here’s 8 ways you can blast through any frustration:

1. Ask Yourself, “What Is Working in This Situation?”
Even if feels like nothing is working, look closely and you will probably find at least something that is going right. So, that’s good. You’ve found something that’s working. Now, how do you improve it? By asking this question, you’ve taken yourself out of the negative mindset of “it’s hopeless” and are back to focusing on the positive.
There's something that’s working and that will give you a clue of what direction to focus on. You may find that even if your previous issues come up you’ll be able to resolve them in the process of concentrating on your improvements.

2. Keep an Accomplishments Log
Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.

3. Focus On What You Want to Happen
Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?

4. Remove the “Noise” and Simplify
When you’re trying to solve a problem, you can get so wrapped up in trying to find a solution that you add unnecessary clutter, noise, and tasks to a project because you thought they “might” be a solution.
Working on this website, I get bombarded by offer after offer of “easy ways to run your website”, “get more traffic”, “make more money” etc. They’re just noise though and usually a waste of my time even reading them. These people are just trying to make money off of me. They have no interest in whether I succeed or not. When people are frustrated by how slow the hard work process is taking, they get tempted by these “here’s what you’ve been missing” and “I’ll make it easy for you” offers. Usually, it ends up that if you do get tempted by the offers you discover 6 months down the road that if you had just stuck with your first plan and just kept working at it, you’d be a lot further ahead by now. Not to mention richer from not having spent money on the Get Rich Quick schemes. Believe in yourself. Simplify and go back to the basics. Determine what is really necessary and remove everything else. Anything that takes your time and effort that isn’t adding value, should be eliminated.

5. Multiple Solutions
You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.

6. Take Action
When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.

7. Visualize a Positive Outcome to the Situation
A lot of times you can get stuck on focusing on what you don’t want to happen or fearing the absolute worst thing that could happen. The top athletes of the world will imagine themselves competing flawlessly over and over again. There is no room for failure in their minds. This is what you need to focus on as well. See yourself achieving your desired outcome. What will it look like? What will it feel like? What will you say? How will you feel? Take the time to visualize it and really feel it. It will inspire you to keep moving forwards.

8. Stay Positive
Things are usually not as bad as they first appear. Sometimes, things seem much worse simply because we’re tired or mentally drained. Taking a break and remembering to keep your sense of humour can also help. This time of frustration will pass. A positive mind is far more open to solutions and answers than a negative one that thinks it’s just “hopeless” and thinks “what’s the use?” A closed mind will not be able to see the possible solutions when they do come along. Stay positive.
As with any problem, the solution is to figure out what your options are, decide on a plan, focus, and then take action. By using the above 8 steps, you should find that you’re running into fewer problems and feeling less frustration. Instead, you may find that you’re running into opportunities and you know exactly how to take advantage of them.
http://www.life-with-confidence.com/frustration.html

Now what is IS planning?

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) is the process of aligning an organization's business strategy with effective computer-based information systems to achieve critical business objectives. SISP is a top concern of major executives and considerable resources (time and money) are spent in SISP activities. Many SISP initiatives are not successful due to the difficulty of implementing the recommendations. A significant problem is the Specification Gap between the description of the recommended systems and the detail needed for actual system implementation. Existing SISP methods do not provide sufficiently rigorous representations to specify detailed system recommendations. Box structures are proposed as a solution to this problem and a SISP process with embedded box structure methods is presented. We have used this innovative process in two SISP projects with large organizations. Partial results from one of the projects are presented as a case study to illustrate the use of box structures and their benefits
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/HICSS.2000.926735

So what would be the two most frequent causes of frustration for IT professional and user while working on an IS plan. I am not a fully pledge IT professional yet but if I will be asked with this question I would answer change and failure. Well when working on an IS plan or any other plan you should always think of what is the plan for, what should be done and how to develop the plan. Change is the only thing that is constant in this world and so we have to cope with it. As a person develops a plan there are always changes that occur which we do not expect and this causes frustration. Another is failure to follow the plan.

There are six externalities that bring about change. They are regulation, capital markets, competition, technology, globalization and customers. When any of these external contexts changes radically and the company is either unable or unwilling to change, it often results in failure.

Company success is very much like human behavior—a result of nature and nurture. But managers refuse to say that they were blessed from above, and so they take all the credit for themselves. They succeed as long as the environment doesn't’t change. The underlying theory is that many people in business succeed by accident and not by plan.
But, unfortunately, people end up believing what they will succeed forever, and they become resistant to change. They get locked into one paradigm or one way of life.

Not meeting what you have planned for signifies failure and would cause frustration. Well this is what they call plan to fail but I guess it is unpredictable that each plan would work out as it is planned. We should just look forward of what would best go with what we want to happen. As an IT professional one should have great patience to be able to cope up with frustrations.

I guess the main cause of frustration is not meeting the goal of any work done. When working on a plan encountering problems is one main reason for frustration, of course who would want their plan to fail or not work. Another is that when other part of the plan resist to the changes. If ever the user himself resists to have such change for the improvement of his work then the plan would not work because the user itself does not support. Though there are a lot of causes of frustrations, one should have the patience and perseverance to cope up with it and straighten up things to achieve the goal.

MIS 2 - Assignment 2

Business Plan and the IS Plan

To start of with I had first defined what a business plan and IS plan is.

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.

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

Information has emerged as an agent of integration and the enabler of new competitiveness for today’s enterprise in the global marketplace. However, has the paradigm of strategic planning changed sufficiently to support the new role of information systems and technology? We reviewed the literature for commonly used or representative information planning methodologies and found that a new approach is needed. There are six methodologies reviewed in this paper. They all tend to regard planning as a separate stage which does not connect structurally and directly to the information systems development. An integration of planning with development and management through enterprise information resources - which capture and characterize the enterprise – will shorten the response cycle and even allow for economic evaluation of information system investment.

For a long time relationship between information system functions and corporate strategy was not of much interest to Top Management of firms. Information Systems were thought to be synonymous with corporate data processing and treated as some back-room operation in support of day-to-day mundane tasks (Rockart, 1979). In the 80’s and 90’s, however, there has been a growing realization of the need to make information systems of strategic importance to an organization. Consequently, strategic information systems planning (SISP) is a critical issue. In many industry surveys, improved SISP is often mentioned as the most serious challenge facing IS managers (Pavri and Ang, 1995, Beath and Orlikowski, 1994; Martin, 1993; Porter and Miller,

1985).

Planning for information systems, as for any other system, begins with the identification of needs. In order to be effective, development of any type of computer-based system should be a response to need--whether at the transaction processing level or at the more complex information and support systems levels. Such planning for information systems is much like strategic planning in management. Objectives, priorities, and authorization for information systems projects need to be formalized. The systems development plan should identify specific projects slated for the future, priorities for each project and for resources, general procedures, and constraints for each application area. The plan must be specific enough to enable understanding of each application and to know where it stands in the order of development. Also the plan should be flexible so that priorities can be adjusted if necessary. King (King, 1995) in his recent article has argued that a strategic capability architecture - a flexible and continuously improving infrastructure of organizational capabilities – is the primary basis for a company's sustainable competitive advantage. He has emphasized the need for continuously updating and improving the strategic capabilities architecture.

http://viu.eng.rpi.edu/publications/strpaper.pdf

Every year, $300-700 million dollar corporations spend about 5% of their gross income on information systems and their supports. That's from about $15,000,000 to $35,000,000! A significant part of those funds support enterprise databases, a philosophy of database system applications that enable corporations to research the past, control the present, and plan for the future.

Even though an information system costs from $1,000,000 to $10,000,000, and even through most chief information officers (CIOs) can specify exactly how much money is being spent for hardware, software, and staff, CIOs cannot however state with any degree of certainty why one system is being done this year versus next, why it is being done ahead of another, or finally, why it is being done at all.

Many enterprises do not have model-based information systems development environments that allow system designers to see the benefits of rearranging an information systems development schedule. Consequently, the questions that cannot be answered include:

• What effect will there be on the overall schedule if an information system is purchased versus developed?
• At what point does it pay to hire an abnormal quantity of contract staff to advance a schedule?
• What is the long term benefit from 4GL versus 3GL?
• Is it better to generate 3GL than to generate/use a 4GL?
• What are the real costs of distributed software development over centralized development?

If these questions were transformed and applied to any other component of a business (e.g., accounting, manufacturing, distribution and marketing), and remained unanswered, that unit's manager would surely be fired!

We not only need answers to these questions NOW!, we also need them quickly, cost effectively, and in a form that they can be modeled and changed in response to unfolding realities. This paper provides a brief review of a successful 10-step strategy that answers these questions.

Too many half-billion dollar organizations have only a vague notion of the names and interactions of the existing and under development information systems. Whenever they need to know, a meeting is held among the critical few, an inventory is taken, interactions confirmed, and accomplishment schedules are updated.

This ad hoc information systems plan was possible only because all design and development was centralized, the only computer was a main-frame, and the past was acceptable prologue because budgets were ever increasing, schedules always slipping, and information was not yet part of the corporation's critical edge.

Well, today is different, really different! Budgets are decreasing, and slipped schedules are being cited as preventing business alternatives. Confounding the computing environment are different operating systems, DBMSs, development tools, telecommunications (LAN, WAN, Intra-, Inter-, and Extra-net), and distributed hard- and software.

Rather than having centralized, long-range planning and management activities that address these problems, today's business units are using readily available tools to design and build ad hoc stop-gap solutions. These ad hoc systems not only do not interconnect, support common semantics, or provide synchronized views of critical corporate policy, they are soon to form the almost impossible to comprehend confusion of systems and data from which systems order and semantic harmony must spring.

Not only has the computing landscape become profoundly different and more difficult to comprehend, the need for just the right--and correct--information at just the right time is escalating. Late or wrong information is worse than no information.

Information systems managers need a model of their information systems environment. A model that is malleable. As new requirements are discovered, budgets modified, new hardware/software introduced, this model must be such that it can reconstitute the information systems plan in a timely and efficient manner.

http://www.tdan.com/view-articles/5262

Planning is essential for every organization. It is the point were they organize the following steps to be done and what are to be followed to be able to reach a goal. It is also important for an organization to have both Business plan and Information system plan and both should coincide with one other to achieve a definite goal.

MIS 2 - Assignment 1

10 years from now?

Wew, I miss blogging for assignment like this. hAhaha Well I guess I’ll be doing lots of this on the coming days. Good luck for me. For this first assignment in MIS 2 our task is to envision or picture out ourselves 10 years from now and identify strategies for us to be worthy of being called an IT professional. I do have plans for the future but as time passes it seems like my plans changes maybe because of the environment that also undergo changes.

Upon making this assignment, I kept on thinking of what would I be in the future and guess what! I can’t think of any specific job. hAha. As I was thinking what would I want to be in the next 10 years I end up reminiscing my past when I was a little girl. LOL. When I was young I always play around with my sisters and acting like we are office people. Hehe. Well just a sharing that as a child I do have plans which are not intended to be one but are like one. And now as a student I can’t think of what specifically would I want to be. Hmmm. As for today I think it would not be that easy to just grab the job you want. Just studying in this course I always end up of loosing hope because of all the struggles I am currently encountering and so as other students for sure. I know every college students feels the same way but then I feel like IT is just different from the rest. Haha. Maybe it is because of the rapid change in technology as time passes and there are a lot of changes to cope up with. But when time comes that I will overcome these struggles and hardships, which would be another story and still a fantasy for me now. Wew. Yes graduating is still a dream story which I need to bring to reality. It would be so satisfying, fulfilling, gratifying, I don’t know what would be the best adjective that would best describe the feeling of graduating from IT and be called as an IT professional. Woohoo.

Now what is an IT professional and what would be their role in the society which I will be one in the future (hopefully). Haha An IT professional is the one who had finished a complete degree in Information Technology.

What is information technology
Information technology, IT is usually involved in the context of a business and is often used to automate manual tasks as well as improve efficiencies within an organisation. By involving computer systems, IT has helped industry reach new markets and apply new services to customers and clients.

Areas in Information technology
In the developing information technology field their is a particular trend in specialisation . In partcular to databases, office information systems, local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), the internet and programming.
(link removed)

Information Technology (IT) is a broad term that includes all aspects of managing and processing information and related technologies. Information technology professionals are responsible for designing, developing, supporting and managing computer hardware, computer software, and information networks, including the Internet. The realworld applications of information technologies can be found everywhere. In fact, IT is likely already a part of your life in ways you may not even be aware. Examples of real world application of information technology includes computer software used to manage basic computer applications, computer generated animation in popular movies, networks and programs that allow you to purchase online, and satellites and systems that enable NASA to preform remote space exploration. There are a wide variety of career opportunities available for capable and experienced IT professionals. Select a category below to review detailed job descriptions, career reviews, to identify useful technology degrees, and to see employment forecasts in information technology.
http://www.careeroverview.com/technology-careers.html

“As IT professionals we live in exciting times. The IT profession is coming of age and the role of the IT professional is changing rapidly. The traditional IT Department, as a support function dedicated to providing technical solutions to problems defined by ‘the busness’, is set to disappear. The reality today is that IT doesn’t just support business, it powers business and the future for the IT profession is all about the development of business-focussed professionals with a much wider range of skills and capabilities than in the past. Information technology can, and in many instances does, deliver very substantial business and social benefits. It enables organisations to make dramatic leaps in productivity and governments to deliver greatly enhanced service levels that their citizens now expect. But successful IT enabled business change often remains elusive. If we are to realise the full potential of IT the function must move from being viewed as a technical solution provider to be seen as a full transformation partner. This article draws on UK experience over the past 5 years to outline what all this will mean for IT professionals, for the IT profession and for the institutions that support the profession.”

By: Colin Thompson
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k50701m6u52pn2v2/

Here are some careers that an IT professional could have.

1. Software and Hardware Engineers
Information technology engineers work on various processes, both hardware and software. They aid in creating the hardware equipment needed for creating the computer systems. The engineers are actively involved in study of business.
Hardware engineers create, test and supervise systems that run the computers and enable processes. They ensure that hardware systems are up and running at all times without interrupting the flow of work.

Software engineers design and develop software applications that aid businesses run multiple processes in an automated manner.

These jobs may also involve:
- Study client processes to determine their needs for software and hardware.
- Manage a team of developers and engineers .
- Analyze, design and develop software processes.
- Monitor systems, control quality and maintain supplies.
- Evaluation of various flows and processes. Fresh Graduates can start as junior or support engineers. Candidates with over 3-5 years of experience can be considered for the role of Project Leader/Manager. Project Managers generally play a supervisory role and mange a team of computer engineers and information technology specialists. Most technology firms also offer comprehensive internship program that serves as a breeding ground for aspiring information technology professionals.


2. IT Consultants
Information Technology professionals are increasingly being sought to play the role of consultants to various business. They study the processes like supply chain, inventory management etc and recommend information technology based solutions that will basically make the process error free, simpler and quicker.

Information technology based consultants are required across various industry segments to right up to government organizations. Entreprenuial information technology consultants can also set up their own consulting firms and advice clients independently on how information technology can help their business and augment profits. Information technology professionals can branch out with their own consultancy after a minimum of 5-10 years of experience in the related areas of information technology.

3. Network Administrator
Network Administrator can work from high schools to big corporations. Their role can be very challenging with multitasking components. Their goal is to run a smoothly functioning computer network—free of bugs, glitches, and interruptions. Example of what a network administrator may do during his day can include computer software; get computer/network up and running again after it crashes; set up new devices and solving computer problems on a consistent basis. This job provides hands on experience on working on networks and administration.

4. Database Specialist
A database specialist creates, customizes and maintains database applications for businesses. They will incorporate not only programming but also planning and design with working with popular database applications such as SQL and Access. Their database programs may range from reporting POS transactions, customer details or web-based applications. Database specialization is a growing area of expertise within IT as well as one very well paid.
http://www.unixl.com/dir/information_technology/information_technology_jobs/

5. Computer programmers
Computer programmers develop the instructions and languages computers use to operate. They also resolve computer problems and logical tests within the system. The roles of programmers and programs have evolved with technical advancements in language and computing. The responsibilities and backgrounds of engineers vary depending on the company or agency.

Essentially, computer programs instruct the computer on how to function. These functions differ according to the information required. The time it takes to write a program ranges between a few hours for simple programs to years for more complex programs. Many programmers collaborate in a team in this process.

Programmers take the designs of software engineers and turn them into functional computer instructions that make up a program. This process includes using technical language codes that vary according to the program’s use. Many different languages are used, including those that are platform-specific for databases, Many programmers know more than a single language and they are identified according to they type of function or language they do know.

Often, programmers will change existing codes and programs. When they do this they place comments into the instructions to make other users aware of the changes. Computer-assisted software engineering (CASE) assist engineers in this process by automatically creating large coded sections. Pre-existing code is also stored in libraries to allow more convenient and productive customizing.
http://www.careeroverview.com/computer-programming-careers.html

6. Information Systems Manager
Organizations have demanded greater use of newer technologies in recent years to stay competitive. Important issues involving the use of electronic or online commerce include when and how a company incorporates these new technologies. Information and Computer systems managers are essential in planning an organization’s future, maintaining Internet support, and supervising security operations.

Managers are in charge of all planning and developing phases of a firm’s activities. They consult with executive managers about plans and goals for the future while working with teams in the conceptual capacity and developmental process of particular products.

Computer and information systems managers supervise the programming, support, and analyst departments of an organization. They work in the planning and developing process of all implemental phases of computer activities. This includes installing software and hardware, design programming, networking, and Internet maintenance. More managers are even involved in network security areas, in addition to strategically evaluating organizational needs relating to equipment and information. They set tasks and delegate responsibilities for workers and are essentially on top of the latest up-dates in technology news and advancement to help the organization stay competitive.

Management information systems (MIS) directors oversee all resources and systems within a firm. They are often subordinate to a head information officer and supervise the work of other subordinate information workers. They manage the many services available to employees, including the help desk and making valuable suggestions to technological practice as it relates to software and hardware development. These managers are essential to an organization in ensuring the fluidity, efficiency, availability, and security of all services.

Project Managers work out the firm’s necessary scheduling and budget requirements for specific projects. They work in all phases of the project with all of the key players in the process, including clients, technological specialists, consultants, and sales representatives. Security enhancement is becoming a more common type of project for these managers.

LAN/WAN (Local Area Network/Wide Area Network) managers work in the administration and design process of a local firm’s internal network. They essentially manage and the operation of the network and all of it’s elemental features—including, applications and systems software, hardware, and others.

Strong interpersonal skills will help computer and information specialists work with and coordinate activities of different workers. They coordinate activities with top management executives, departmental managers, equipment suppliers, and all other contractors.
http://www.careeroverview.com/computer-information-systems-manager-careers.html

These jobs sound so great definitely and for me these are dream jobs. Haha Now what would possibly be my strategies for me.

First step of course is to finish my studies with this degree in information technology. Hopefully I’d be able to graduate on the right time.(Hopefully 4 years at least) hAha But in the university I am in specially the college I belong that would be a miracle. LOL At present my job is to do my best and keep on striving for me to pass all my subjects. That would be such a great achievement for me. Marching on the graduation rites wearing my toga is a dream came to reality. Hahaha I would be so proud of myself by then and so as my parents. That time I would be entitled of having the name of an IT professional. Wew! It is my job of course to be made worthy to be called one and the following are what I would do to worthy of becoming one.

If I’m fortunate to and graduate on my degree I am not expecting that I would get a stable and good-paying job right away. Of course there would still be some things I should do in order to sharpen up my skills well. I could probably join some seminars and trainings for me to learn what I should learn before getting a job. There are still a lot of things to be learned after school so these things could help.

And after accomplishing those things I could then look for job opportunities suited for my skills. Honestly, by this time I still don’t know what my best skill is in terms of computing. But I believe I would just be able to discover it in the near future on the process of studying and preparing for my plans. If I am fortunate to have a job I would definitely do my best to keep it and make it work for me. Of course I would choose a job that best suits my skills and that I would enjoy in doing.

This time I just have to do what is to be done in school so I would be able to follow my step in reaching my goal and be worthy to be called an IT professional in the future.