Critical Success Factors

For an introduction, first I will give insights about critical success factors. To start, so many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials. That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project. By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project. As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.

So the question is identify and discuss the steps for “critical success factors” approach. So this is the question that needs to be answered. But in order for me to answer it, I should discuss all about what is a “critical success factor”? so what is a critical success factor or (CSF), according to wikipedia.org it 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. Others also says that it is an an element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. Critical success factors may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. Or any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. Critical success factors are normally identified in such areas as production processes, employee and organization skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. These are some of the definition about what critical success factor or (CSF) means. So we proceed to the next.

There are four basic types of CSF's

They are:

1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured. Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey). So next let us diccuss the factors involving CSF.

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.

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 plays a key role in ensuring success in almost any initiative within an organization. Nothing makes greater impact on an organization than when leaders model the behavior they are trying to promote among employees.

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
· Unconnected reward systems
· Lack of common perspectives
· No formal communication

Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities
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.

Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure
Without a solid IT infrastructure, an organization cannot enable its employees to share information on a
large scale. Yet the trap that most organizations fall into is not a lack of IT, but rather too much focus on
IT.

Success factors related to IT.
· Approach
· Content
· Common platforms
· Simple technology
· Adequate training

Measurement
Because many variables may affect an outcome, it is important to correlate 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.

Start with a vision:
· Mission statement
· Develop 5-6 high level goals
· Develop hierarchy of goals and their success factors
· Lists of requirements, problems, and assumptions
· Leads to concrete requirements at the lowest level of decomposition (a single, implementable idea) Along the way, identify the problems being solved and the assumptions being made Cross-reference usage scenarios and problems with requirements
· Analysis matrices
· Problems vs. Requirements matrix
· Usage scenarios vs. Requirements matrix
· Solid usage scenarios
· Relationship to Usage Scenarios
· Usage scenarios or "use cases"; provide a means of determining:
o Are the requirements aligned and self-consistent?
o Are the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise?
o Are the requirements complete
· Results of the Analysis

Now, I will give examples of CSF.

Statistical research into CSF’s on organizations has shown there to be seven key areas. These CSF's are:

1. Training and education
2. Quality data and reporting
3. Management commitment, customer satisfaction
4. Staff Orientation
5. Role of the quality department
6. Communication to improve quality, and
7. Continuous improvement

These were identified when Total Quality was at its peak, so as you can see have a bias towards quality matters. You may or may not feel that these are right or indeed critical for your organization.

The Critical Success Factors we have identified and us in the BIR process are captured in the mnemonic PRIMO-F

1. People - availability, skills and attitude
2. Resources - People, equipment, etc
3. Innovation - ideas and development
4. Marketing - supplier relation, customer satisfaction, etc
5. Operations - continuous improvement, quality,
6. Finance- cash flow, available investment etc

Steps in identifying CSF.

In reality, identifying your CSFs is a very iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or project:

Step 1:
Establish your business's or project's mission and strategic goals

Step 2:
For each strategic goal, ask yourself "what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?" The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.


Tip: How Many CSFs?
To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use Rockart's CSF types as a checklist.
· Industry - these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the things that the organization must do to remain competitive.
· Environmental - these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and technological advancements are included in this category.
· Strategic - these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the organization. The way in which the company chooses to position themselves, market themselves, whether they are high volume low cost or low volume high cost producers, etc.
· Temporal - these factors result from the organization's internal forces. Specific barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.

Step 3:
Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step 4:
Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.

Step 5:
Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project's strategy.

Step 6:
Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.

And lastly, I will just share a little CSF on DLPC. This is the data I gathered during the interview. Critical success factors that involve DLPC is their peopleware, project cost, support from business owner, time, and budget. These are the factors that is critical to the success of a project. So these are all I want to share. Thanks!

References:
http://docs.google.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm
http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html

Systems Analyst as a Project Manager

To start, let me differentiate a systems analyst to a 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. 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.

Responsibilities

The specific responsibilities of the Project Manager vary depending on the industry, the company size, the company maturity, and the company culture. However, there are some responsibilities that are common to all Project Managers,

· Developing the project plan
· Managing the project stakeholders
· Managing the project team
· Managing the project risk
· Managing the project schedule
· Managing the project budget
· Managing the project conflicts

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[1]

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.

While, 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.

So basically, a systems analyst is also a project manager in a way that they both responsible for planning systems and other task.

The Reasons to Initiate IS Project
· The new information system is part of an overall strategic plan.
· The new information system is to respond an immediate business need.

What Is a Project?
· A project is a planned undertaking with a beginning and an end that produce predetermined result and is usually constrained by a schedule and resource.

Reasons for Project Failure
· Incomplete or changing requirements
· Limited user involvement
· Lack of executive support
· Lack of technical support
· Poor project planning
· Unclear objectives
· Lack of required resources

Reasons for Project Success
· Clear system requirement definitions
· Substantial user involvement
· Support from upper management
· Thorough and detailed project plans
· Realistic work schedules and milestones

Project Management
· Project management is organizing and directing people to achieve a planned result within budget and on schedule.

· Success or failure of project depends on skills of the project manager.
· The responsibilities of project manager are both internal and external

Internal Responsibilities of the Project Manager
· Identify project tasks and build a work breakdown structure
· Develop the project schedule
· Recruit and train team members
· Assign team members to tasks
· Coordinate activities of team members and subteams
· Assess project risks
· Monitor and control project deliverables and milestones
· Verify the quality of project deliverables

External Responsibilities of the Project Manager
· Report the project’s status and progress
· Establish good working relationships with those who identify the needed system requirements
· The people who will use the system
· Work directly with the client (the project’s sponsor) and other stakeholders
· Identify resource needs and obtain resources

Various Titles/Roles of Project Managers

Project Management Tasks
· Beginning of project
· Overall project planning
· During project
· Project execution management
· Project control management
· Project closeout
· Project management approach differs for
· Predictive SDLC
· Adaptive SDLC
·
System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
· Project planning – initiate, ensure feasibility, plan schedule, obtain approval for project
· Analysis – understand business needs and processing requirements
· Design – define solution system based on requirements and analysis decisions
· Implementation – construct, test, train users, and install new system
· Support – keep system running and improve


Project Management Body of Knowledge
· Scope management
· Control functions included in system
· Control scope of work done by team
· Time management
· Build detailed schedule of all project tasks
· Monitor progress of project against milestones
· Cost management
· Calculate initial cost/benefit analysis
· Monitor expenses

Project Management Body of Knowledge (continued)
· Quality management
· Establish quality plan and control activities for each project phase
· Human resource management
· Recruit and hire project team members
· Train, motivate, team build
· Communications management
· Identify stakeholders and their communications
· Establish team communications

Project Management Body of Knowledge (continued)
· Risk management
· Identify and review risks for failure
· Develop plans to reduce these risks
· Procurement management
· Develop requests for proposals (RFPs)
· Evaluate bids, write contracts, monitor performance
· Integration management

Three Driving Forces to Start IS Project
· Respond to opportunity
· Top-down
· Resolve problem
· Bottom-up
· Conform to directive
· Legislative changes

So basically, in connection to what I have interviewed, he is a systems analyst of the Davao Light and Power Company. He stated that all of the jobs in their department is focused on supporting all the processes in their organization. They can suggest projects to the top management, but basically all projects are for fast processing to other departments and support type. So basically, they come up with projects but still they depend on the top management.

Appendixes:


References:
www.itk.ilstu.edu/.../Chapter%203%20-%20Analyst%20as%20a%20Project%20Manager.ppt
http://en.wikipedia.org/

Organizational Change

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. The following links (broadly reviewed in the following order) might be helpful to establish some sense about organizations, and their leadership and management.

Range of Organizational Change:

1. Automation - Using technology to perform current tasks more efficiently & effectively.
2. Rationalization of Procedures - Streamline Standard Operating Procedures; eliminate bottlenecks
3. Business Reengineering - Radical redesign of processes to improve cost, quality, service; maximize benefits of technology
4. Paradigm Shift - A complete mental model of how a complex system functions

What is Organizational Change?

Typically, the concept of organizational change is in regard to organization-wide change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organization-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsizing", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organizational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organization operates.

What makes an Organization to change?

Change should not be done for the sake of change -- it's a strategy to accomplish some overall goal. Usually organizational change is provoked by some major outside driving force, e.g., substantial cuts in funding, address major new markets/clients, need for dramatic increases in productivity/services, etc. Typically, organizations must undertake organization-wide change to evolve to a different level in their life cycle, e.g., going from a highly reactive, entrepreneurial organization to more stable and planned development. Transition to a new chief executive can provoke organization-wide change when his or her new and unique personality pervades the entire organization.

Why is Organization-Wide Change Difficult to Accomplish?

Typically there are strong resistances to change. People are afraid of the unknown. Many people think things are already just fine and don't understand the need for change. Many are inherently cynical about change, particularly from reading about the notion of "change" as if it's a mantra. Many doubt there are effective means to accomplish major organizational change. Often there are conflicting goals in the organization, e.g., to increase resources to accomplish the change yet concurrently cut costs to remain viable. Organization-wide change often goes against the very values held dear by members in the organization, that is, the change may go against how members believe things should be done. That's why much of organizational-change literature discusses needed changes in the culture of the organization, including changes in members' values and beliefs and in the way they enact these values and beliefs.

How Organization-Wide Change Is Best Carried Out?

Successful change must involve top management, including the board and chief executive. Usually there's a champion who initially instigates the change by being visionary, persuasive and consistent. A change agent role is usually responsible to translate the vision to a realistic plan and carry out the plan. Change is usually best carried out as a team-wide effort. Communications about the change should be frequent and with all organization members. To sustain change, the structures of the organization itself should be modified, including strategic plans, policies and procedures. This change in the structures of the organization typically involves an unfreezing, change and re-freezing process.
The best approaches to address resistances are through increased and sustained communications and education. For example, the leader should meet with all managers and staff to explain reasons for the change, how it generally will be carried out and where others can go for additional information. A plan should be developed and communicated. Plans do change. That's fine, but communicate that the plan has changed and why. Forums should be held for organization members to express their ideas for the plan. They should be able to express their concerns and frustrations as well.

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 are 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 helps 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 employees 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 Decision

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:

Levels, goals and strategies
Measurement system
Sequence of steps
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 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 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 works 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 assume 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 is fit to choose?

These levels have much of the same goals: increasing customer satisfaction, doing things right is 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 them 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:

“We will expand into the polystyrene market within the next five years and achieve 20% market share”
We will decrease the time from research to customer delivery by 50% within two years
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:

“We will re-engineer our research and development process”
“We will evaluate and improve our sales and marketing department”
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 employee’s 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.

In an organization there are different processes and workflows. And organizations are different from each other, maybe they have the same concept but still every organization is unique. So in every organization there are different problems that would occur plus the fact it has different type of solutions to partake. And it has different employee and management head to provide solutions to different problem. To make it easy, every organization can choose to what change they will use, that depends on what change fits to the solution. So for me, any of the choices is a radical type of change the only difference is that how to use those changes properly and adequate to the organizational goals and problems occurred.

References:
http://www.organizedchange.com/decide.htm
http://managementhelp.org/mgmnt/orgchnge.htm
http://managementhelp.org/org_chng/org_chng.htm

a good systems analyst

The question was based on my learning from chapter 1, identify and discuss some characteristics that a good Systems Analyst must have. So for me to start, I will discuss first all the necessary information that you need to know about chapter 1 which is the world of the information systems analyst. So to start, first I will give you all the definitions and etc. so what is a Systems Analyst? A systems analyst is a business professional who uses analysis and design techniques to solve business problems using information technology. So a systems analyst is just basically person that handles all the necessary analysis and design in an organization. System analysis is the process of understanding and specifying in detail what the information system should accomplish. So as a systems analyst, they are the one who do the analysis so basically they need to understand and specify what the organizations information system should accomplish. And in design, as a systems analyst they should also be able to do systems design. Systems design is the process of specifying in detail how the many components of the information system should be physically implemented. So in short, a system analyst also needs to design the information system of an organization to specify in detail the physical aspect of the desired information system. Now let’s go to the characteristics that a good systems analyst have. I have searched some inputs over the web and this is all the inputs I have gathered. The system analyst must be able to communicate in writing and orally. The analyst must easily get along with people. The analyst must be a good listener and be able to react to what people say. The analyst must be knowledgeable of technology. The analyst is not expected to know the intricacies of programming, but a decent general knowledge of concepts and terms is essential. The analyst must be knowledgeable of business. The analyst is not expected to be an expert in business but a decent understanding of the client's world is required. Other sources are as follows, one should be familiar with designing concepts that is appropriate for the particular development environment. This means one who is good at designing commercial buildings isn't necessarily a good person to design residential housing. Although a lot of concepts overlap, one who is good at designing mainframe system isn't necessarily a good candidate for web projects. One should have the skills to use the tools to facilitate his/her work such as design software tools. If someone is struggling to use a hammer s/he is worrying about putting a nail in straight not about building a good structure. One should have the industry/business knowledge or the capacity to acquire them. System implementation is a lot like a bunch of blind people trying to figure out what an elephant looks like. Each person has his/her own field expertise. However, the more knowledge one person has would make the process easier and create better results. Good communication skills without saying are very important. So these are basically all the characteristics that a good system analyst have. So let’s go deeper to that.

A business problem solver – systems analysis and design is, first and foremost, a practical field grounded in time-tested and rapidly evolving knowledge and techniques. Analysts must certainly know about computers and computer programs. They should possess the special skills and develop expertise in programming. But they must also bring to the job a fundamental curiosity to explore how things are done and the determination to make them work better. Developing information systems is not just about writing programs. Information systems are developed to solve problems for organization, and a systems analyst is often thought of as a problem solver rather than a programmer. How does an analyst solve problems? System analysis and design focuses on understanding the business problem and outlining the approach to be taken to solve it. Now I will discuss to you or show you the systems analyst approach in problem solving. Obviously, part of the solution is a new information system, but that is just part of the story.

· First is research and understand the problem
· Then, verify that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs
· After, define the requirements for solving the problem
· Next, develop a set of possible solutions (alternatives)
· Then, decide which solutions is best and make a recommendation
· Next, define the details of the chosen solutions
· After, implement the solution
· And lastly, monitor to make sure that you obtain the desired results

The analyst must first understand the problem and learn everything possible about it – who is involved, what business processes come into play, and what other systems would be affected by solving the problem. Then the analyst needs to confirm for the management that the benefits of solving the problem outweigh the costs. If solving the problem is feasible, the analyst defines in detail what is required to solve it – what specific objectives must be satisfied, what data need to be stored and used, what processing must be done to the data, and what outputs must be produced. What needs to be done must be defined first. After detailed requirements are defined, the analyst develops a set of possible solutions. Each possible solution (an alternative) needs to be thought through carefully. Usually, an information system alternative is defined as a set of choices about physical components that make up an information system. Many different alternatives must be considered, and the challenge is to select the best – that is, the solution with the fewest risks and more benefits. Alternatives for solving the problem must be cost-effective, but they also must be consistent with the corporate strategic plan. Does the alternative contribute to the basic goals and objectives of the organization? Will it integrate seamlessly with other planned systems? Does it use technology that fits the strategic direction that the management defined? Will end users be receptive to it? Analyst must consider many factors and make tough decisions. After the systems analyst has determined, in consultation with the management, which alternative is to recommend and the management has approved the recommendation, the design details must be worked out. Here the analyst is concerned with creating a blueprint (design specifications) for how the new system will work. Systems design specifications cover databases, user interfaces, networks, operating procedures, conversion plans, and of course, program modules. After the design specifications are complete, the actual construction of the system can begin, including the programming and testing. An information system can cost a lot of money to build and install so detailed plans must be drawn up. It is not unusual for dozens of programmers to work on programs to get a system up and running and those programmers need to know exactly what the system is to accomplish. So this is a characteristic that a good systems analyst must have.

Systems that solve business problems – so let me define first what is a system, a system is a collection of interrelated components that function together to achieve some outcome. An information system is a collection of interrelated components that collect, process, store, and provide as output the information needed to accomplish a business task. What are the interrelated components of an information system? A subsystem is a system that is part of another system, so subsystems might be one way to think about the components of a system. Every system, in turn, is part of a larger system, called a supersystem. Another way is to list the parts that interact. Examples of this include hardware, software, inputs, outputs, data, people, and procedures. This view is also very useful to the analyst. Every system has a boundary between it and its environment. Any inputs or outputs must cross the system boundary. Defining these inputs and outputs are important part of systems analysis and design. In an information system, people are also key components, and these people do some of the system’s work. Another boundary that is important to a systems analyst is the automated boundary which is a part of the system, where work is done by computers. And now I will discuss the types of information systems that a systems analyst must know which the following is:

· Transaction processing system (TPS)
· Management information systems (MIS)
· Decision support and knowledge-based systems (DSS/KBS)
· Enterprise applications
· Communication support systems
· And office support systems

Required skills of the systems analyst - first is the analytical skills, so what is an analytical skill? Analytical skill is the ability to see things as systems, identify, analyze, and solve problems in an optimal way for a specific organization. So from what is stated above, the ability to see things as a system, the ability to identify, the ability to analyze, and the ability to solve problems are the main concerns of a system analyst in the analytical aspect of a systems analyst. So a system analyst must develop these types of skills. As we all know that we can have all these skills but a system analyst must really develop in order to be more effective in designing any modeling process. So, enough for the analytical skill and lets go to the next one which is the technical skills.

The second one is the technical skills, so what is a technical skill? Technical skill is the ability to understand how computers, data networks, databases, operating systems, etc. work together, as well as their potentials and limitations. So from what is stated above, the ability to understand how computers, data networks, databases, operating systems, and etc. work together is the main concerns of a system analyst in the technical aspect of a system analyst. So a system analyst must develop these types of skills in order to be more effective in designing any modeling process. I think for me this very important that a system analyst must really develop in order to be more effective.

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.)

The third one is the management skills, so let me define what a management skill is all about. So what is a management skill? Management skill includes organization’s recourse management, project management (people and money), risk management, and change management. So to elaborate more it is just management skills help systems analysts manage projects, resources, risk, and change. So a system analyst must develop these types of skills in order to be more effective in designing any modeling process. They should be able to manage all the things that are needed to be manage in an organization such as resources, be able to properly disseminate all workforce in a project and properly manage it, be able to know the risk that are involve, and be able to anticipate changes in the environment.

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

The last skill that a system analyst must develop is the communication skill. So let me define what communication skill is all about. So what is communication skill? Communication skill includes effective interpersonal communication (written, verbal, visual, electronic, face-to-face conversations, presentations in front of groups), listening, and group facilitation skills. To elaborate, communication skills are very important to develop in order for the system analyst and clients understand each other. Having good communication with client’s makes things go smoothly and properly. Poor communication leads to mismanagement and even resulting to project failures, and etc.

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.

The analyst’s role in strategic planning – we have described a systems analyst as someone who solves specific business problems by developing or maintaining information systems. The analyst might also be involved with senior managers on strategic management problems – that is, problems involving the future of the organization and plans and processes to ensure its survival and growth. Therefore, the analyst might be asked to participate in a study that carefully examines existing business processes and procedures and then to propose information system solutions that can have a radical impact. Many tools and techniques of analysis and design are used to analyze business processes, redesign them, and the provide computer support to make them work. So basically, the role of a systems analyst in creating a strategic plan is very crucial, so systems analyst must really have the skills in creating a strategic plan.

The analyst as a system developer – we have discussed many roles that a systems analyst can play in an organization, however the main job of an analyst is working on a specific information systems development project. As a preview of what system development involves the systems analyst, systems analysis tasks, systems design tasks, and implementation and support. So these are the requirements that a system development involves.

So to summarize basically to be called a good systems analyst, one must be a problem solver, business problems using information systems technology. Problem solving means looking into the problem in great details, understanding everything and generating several alternatives for solving problem, and then picking up the best solution. And also to be a good systems analyst, you must have the skills needed to be more effective in solving problems such as technical, analytical, managerial, and interpersonal skills. Integrity and ethics behavior are crucial to the success of the analyst. And lastly, become involved in strategic planning.


References:
http://books.google.com.ph
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080725042042AA2MqMh
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070731092009AAjzWqQ