Planning for Information Systems

William R. King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317462767
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Edited by one of the best-known and most widely respected figures in the field, "Planning for Information Systems" is a comprehensive, single source overview of the myriad ideas and processes that are identified with IS planning. While many chapters deal with high level strategic planning, the book gives equal attention to on-the-ground planning issues.Part I, 'Key Concepts of IS Planning', focuses on how IS planning has evolved over the years; business-IS strategic alignment; and the role of dynamic organizational capabilities in leveraging IS competencies. Part II, 'The Organizational IS Planning Process, ' describes IS planning in terms of critical success factors and includes a knowledge-based view of IS planning; a practical assessment of strategic alignment; the IT budgeting process; the search for an optimal level of IS strategic planning; and the role of organizational learning in IS planning.Part III, 'IS Investment Planning', deals with predicting the value that an IS project may have; a 'rational expectations' approach to assessing project payoffs; assessing the social costs and benefits of projects; an options-based approach to managing project risks; planning for project teams; and the moderating effects of coordinated planning. Part IV, 'Goals and Outcomes of IS Planning', considers information strategy as a goal and/or outcome of IS planning; IT infrastructure as a goal or outcome; competitive advantage as a goal or outcome; e-process partnership chains; and planning successful Internet-based projects.

CHAPTER 1

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PLANNING FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS

An Introduction

WILLIAM R. KING

Abstract: Strategic planning for information systems was “invented” in the early 1970s. Its application spread rapidly when IBM incorporated the basic ideas into the Business Systems Planning (BSP) methodology that it recommended to many of its clients. In this introduction to the volume, William R. King reviews the various modes of information systems (IS) strategic planning and provides a comprehensive model for performing the activity. The objectives and contents of the volume are also briefly summarized.

Keywords: Strategic IS Planning, Modes, IS Strategic Planning Process, IS Strategic Planning

In the early 1970s, I was one of very few people simultaneously conducting research, consulting, and teaching in both the areas of strategic planning and information systems (IS).

I was, in fact, interested in creating and defining the relationships between the two. I initially lectured, consulted, and wrote on the topic of “strategic decision and information systems,” which would later be referred to as “strategic decision support systems.”

I also focused on “strategic planning for information systems.” In 1975, I wrote a paper with David Cleland, “A New Method for Strategic Systems Planning” (King and Cleland, 1975), which I followed up in 1978 with the better-known paper “Strategic Planning for Management Information Systems” (King, 1978), which was framed around the transformation of “organizational strategy sets,” consisting of organizational mission, objectives, strategies, and so forth, into “IS strategy sets.” Others subsequently referred to this approach as “strategy set transformation” and later as “alignment.”

In 1980, Robert Zmud and I conceptualized a process not only for having the organization’s strategy set impact the IS strategy set, but also—the reverse aspect of alignment—having the IS strategy set impact the organization’s strategy set (King and Zmud, 1980). This would later spawn the full notion of “alignment” and of “strategic systems”—those systems that could impact an organization’s strategic competitive position.

When IBM adopted the essence of my 1978 paper as a basis for its Business Systems Planning (BSP) process (IBM, 1980), which it offered as a systems planning approach to its many customers around the world, the process was widely applied. Indeed, I have seen nothing in my career that was so quickly adopted by so many organizations. In the early 1970s, when I developed these basic ideas in a number of consulting assignments, I could find no company that was linking its strategic business planning with its IS planning in significant ways. By 1983, almost every one of the dozens of firms that I contacted in a survey study claimed to be doing so.

Of course, rudimentary forms of IS planning existed or were prescribed as early as the 1960s. Budget planning, in which next year’s IS budgets were derived from last year’s budgets by adding planned hardware and software acquisitions, was commonly used. Project planning and scheduling based on critical path notions were also in use, and the notion of a “master plan” that showed how various computer systems and applications were “tied together” into a single overall design were prescriptively discussed, but not well implemented, because most applications systems were “free standing” and developed with little regard to their interactions with other application systems.

For example, working as a consultant for a large bank in the early 1970s, I was asked to propose a strategy for enhancing the bank’s revenues that were derived from small businesses. I naively drew up a plan—based on the premise that existing small business customers for some of the bank’s products were the best prospects for expanding revenues—that involved interesting these customers in other bank products. When I presented this plan, I was told that it would be prohibitively expensive to determine which products a given small business customer currently utilized because the loan, mortgage, checking, savings, and other application systems were not integrated. When I suggested that this might even be done manually if there were some common identifier—the equivalent of a social security number—for each business in each system, I was told that there was no such common identifier. So, the identification of data across systems would have to be done in terms of the company name. A small-scale test for doing so led me to conclude that the names of companies took many different forms in various systems, which in turn led me to completely give up on the approach.

So, in the early 1970s, the “state of the art” in IS planning was rudimentary at best. Even well accepted ideas such as a “master plan” were not much implemented. Since then, IS strategic planning has developed amazingly rapidly—starting first as a free-standing process and then becoming an integral element of overall organizational strategic business planning.

ALTERNATIVE MODES OF SPIS

The evolution of strategic planning for information systems (SPIS) may be used as a basis for portraying four significantly different modes of performing SPIS. These modes are important in that they reflect the transformations between the two “strategy sets” and the relationship between strategic business planning and SPIS in terms of the nature and level of integration between the two processes. The modes, shown in Figure 1.1, are:

• Administrative Integration

• Sequential Integration

• Reciprocal Integration

• Full Integration

Administrative Integration

As shown in Figure 1.1, the least integrated mode, termed “Administrative Integration,” is one in which there is two-way flow between the business planning and the IS planning processes, but this concerns only planning administrative matters such as the scheduling of various events in the planning process, the providing of planning information, the formatting of plan submissions, and so on. This administrative flow is depicted by the dashed arrow that shows flows in both directions in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 Alternate Modes of SPIS

Sequential Integration

The second mode in Figure 1.1 is termed “Sequential Integration.” In addition to the two-way flow of administrative information, the primary flow of substantive information is from left to right. This describes the situation in which decisions are made during the strategic business planning process concerning such matters as business strategies and objectives. These choices become inputs to the SPIS process. In this mode, the IS function is envisioned primarily as the implementer of business strategy, and as such, the business strategy and other business information must first be provided so that the SPIS process can focus on the development of the IS infrastructure and programs that are best suited to the business strategy.

Reciprocal Integration

The mode labeled “Reciprocal Integration” in Figure 1.1 shows a two-way flow of both substantive and administrative information. This reflects a view of IS that recognizes that the organization’s information technology (IT) resources may be drivers of business strategy. For instance, if an organization has an IT capability that is complex, sophisticated, and difficult for others to imitate, the business might wish to develop a business strategy in which this IT capability plays an important role. If a firm can provide access to customer data in a unique manner, the business strategy may be adapted to take advantage of this information capability.

Full Integration

The last mode in Figure 1.1 is “Full Integration.” This suggests that the processes for business strategic planning and SPIS are not separate, but rather are conducted in an integrated and concurrent manner. This represents the recognition that IS is of such critical importance to the enterprise that IS issues must be considered concurrently with other functional issues in the formulation of business strategy.

EVOLUTION OF THE MODES OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS STRATEGIC PLANNING

There is ample evidence that each of the four modes of SPIS depicted in Figure 1.1 is in current use in a variety of organizations. Thus, the historical evolution of SPIS, which may be loosely thought of as going from a total lack of integration and passing though the four modes from top to bottom in Figure 1.1, does not imply that all organizations will follow an evolutionary path or find it useful to move to the level of full integration. Some firms may determine that the mode best suited to their needs is one that has less-than-full integration.

However, there is evidence that the more “proactive” planning modes—full integration and reciprocal integration—result in better planning performance and outcomes than do the other, more “reactive” modes. This suggests that while all firms may not find it desirable to move to full integration, there is reason to expect better planning performance from the more advanced SPIS modes.

A MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL-LEVEL INFORMATION SYSTEMS PLANNING

Figure 1.2 shows a model of strategic planning for IS in terms of the various elements that must be considered and integrated in a strategic planning process for IS in the organization. In effect, the elements on the left side of Figure 1.2 represent multiple starting points for an SPIS process that is concluded, as shown on the right side of the figure, when choices have been made concerning IS’s desired organizational role, mission, capabilities, architectures, and strategic programs, and when implementation plans have been developed.

The SPIS model of Figure 1.2 consists of six key elements:

1. Assessment of external environments

2. Assessment of internal environments

3. Assessment of IS/IT environments

4. Generation and assessments of options for IS/IT change

5. Specification (choice) of IS strategic elements

6. Development and implementation of plans

Assessment of External Environments

One of the major inputs to the SPIS process is a set of assessments of external environments. Of particular interest, as shown in Figure 1.2, are assessments of:

• General business and economic trends

• Industry and competitive trends

Figure 1.2 A General Model of the SPIS Process

• Supplier and customer trends

• Non–IT technological trends

• Government and regulatory trends

Each of these assessments may have initially been made in the strategic business planning process. However, even so, these assessments need to be analyzed to discern their IS-relevant content. It is almost never adequate for SPIS process managers merely to circulate the external environmental assessments that have been performed by business planners because they will gene...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Series Editor's Introduction
• 1. Planning for Information Systems: An Introduction
• Part I. Key Concepts of Information Systems Planning
• Part II. The Organizational Information Systems Planning Process
• Part III. Information Systems Investment Planning
• Part IV. Goals and Outcomes of Information Systems Planning
• Editors and Contributors
• Series Editor
• Index