Transcript Creating business value by doing knowledge work

Information Systems:
Creating Business Value
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Mark Huber, Craig Piercy, and
Patrick McKeown
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Chapter 3:
Doing Knowledge Work to
Create Business Value
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
What We Will Cover:
• Knowledge Work Activities
• Decisions, Decisions—Making Decisions
at the Individual Level
• Problem Solving
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Student ROI (Return on Investment)
Your investment of time and effort in this course will result
in your being able to answer these questions:
1.
What are some activities that you as a knowledge
worker will likely perform to add business value to your
organization?
2.
How do structure and quality information influence the
nature of the decisions made by knowledge workers?
3.
How can knowledge workers use the IADD model of
problem solving to create business value?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
More IS lessons from the RAF
• Systems, to add value, must be directed to purposeful
action
– Technology is nice, but it must be used to do something
– Once the main action to be supported is understood, this will
drive what data will be collected and processed
• Information systems should be concerned with the
conversion of raw data into actionable information
• Systems development is a collaborative effort involving
designers and users
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Simon & the Rational Person
• Humans can be rational actors, their rationality is
bounded by their limitations
• Humans tend to satisfice, or settle on the first acceptable
option, rather optimizing
• Information stored in computers can increase human
rationality if accessible when needed
• The central problem is not how to organize to produce
efficiently, but how to organize to make decisions (i.e.
process information)
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Why We Invest in Information
Technology & Systems
Revenue
+
+
Management
Decision-Making
Information Systems
IS&T
Investment
–
Operational
Systems
–
Strategic
Systems
+
Profit
–
Costs
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Decisions in Business
Ad Hoc
Unscheduled
Summarized
Infrequent
Forward Looking
External
Broad Scope
Decision Characteristics
Unstructured
Semi-structured
Strategic
Management
Tactical
Management
Structured
Operational
Management
Prespecified
Scheduled
Detailed
Frequent
Historical
Internal
Narrow Focus
Short Time Frame
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Information Technology
Provides Assistance to...
• Capture, and codify and create
knowledge
• Communicate and/or distribute
knowledge
• Collaborate with other workers
• Make procedures standard and routine
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Management Information
Periodic Scheduled
Information
Exception Information
Information in
Response to Queries
Types of Information
Reported to Managers
Pushed Information
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Information Technology Uses
• Codify knowledge for transfer
– Easily reusable
– People to documents
– Individual-level standardization
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Information Technology Uses
• Create networks among expert
knowledge holders
– Knowledge lies in experts, not easily
reusable
– Person to person
– Individual-level uniqueness and innovation
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Knowledge Work Activities
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Knowledge Work Activities
• Discovery
• Transformation
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Communication
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Discovery
• What is Discovery?
• Why are search engines an important part of the
discovery process?
• How are Discovery, Intranets, and “best
practices” related?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Transformation
• What is transformation?
• How do databases relate to the transformation of
data?
• Why is database management systems (DBMS)
software important to the transformation process?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sales Data for WildOutfitters
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Transforming Data Visually
Why is this view of the data more useful than the raw
data on the previous slide?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Analysis
• Analysis is …
• ______ software is widely used for the analysis
process. Why is this so?
• How does “GIGO” link discovery to analysis?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Synthesis
• Synthesis is the ….
• What is one frequently used way of synthesizing
data into useful information and knowledge?
• An ______ and ______ synthesis of the results
of an ______ is essential to solving the right
problem and making sound decisions.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Online Analytical Processing
• Enables interactive examination/manipulation of
detailed & consolidated data from many
perspectives
– Analyze complex relationships to discover patterns,
trends, and exception conditions in real time
• Consolidation
– The aggregation of data.
– From simple roll-ups to complex groupings of interrelated
data
• Drill-Down
– Display detail data that comprise consolidated data
• Slicing and Dicing
– The ability to look at the database from different
viewpoints.
– When performed along a time axis, helps analyze trends
and find patterns
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Online Analytical
Processing
Data is retrieved from corporate databases
and staged in an OLAP multi-dimensional
database
Client PC
Web-enabled OLAP
Software
Corporate
Databases
OLAP
Server
Multi•Operational DB
dimensional
•Data Marts
database •Data Warehouse
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Decision Support Systems
What If-Analysis
Sensitivity Analysis
Important
Decision
Support
Systems
Analytical Models
Goal-Seeking Analysis
Optimization Analysis
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Data Mining for Decision Support
–Software analyzes vast amounts of data
–Attempts to discover patterns, trends, &
correlations
–May perform regression, decision tree, cluster
detection, or market basket analysis
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Enterprise Information Portals &
Decision Support
Internet
Extranet
Intranet
Enterprise Information Portal Gateway
Enterprise Information Portal User Interface
DSS
Search
Agents
Data
Mining
OLAP
What-If Models
Sensitivity Models
Goal-Seeking Models
Optimization Models
Knowledge
Management
Database Management Functions
Data
Mart
Operational
Database
Other
Business
Applications
Analytical
Database
Knowledge
Base
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Communication
• Communication is the ….
• Some communication technologies like ______
and ______ ______ focus on physically sharing
a message
• Other communication technologies help in
______ ______.
• ______ and ______ ______ software are
important communication tools.
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Communication Technologies
Visit www.meetinwizard.com to discover a very useful meeting-related communication tool.
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Example of Knowledge Work Activities
Activity
Example
Discovery
Transformation
Analysis
Synthesis
Communication
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Making Decisions at the
Individual Level
• A decision is a ….
• A structured decision is ….
• A semistructured decision is ….
• An unstructured decision is ….
• Relative to decision making, structure, and uncertainty,
why are Information Systems are important?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Two Key Issues
• Uncertainty
– Lack of information
• Ambiguity
– Lack of structure
Using CARROTS
• As a knowledge worker, your work centers on finding and
using quality data, information, and knowledge.
• As a decision maker, the quality of a decision often
depends on the quality of the inputs used to inform the
decision.
• CARROTS: C________, A________, R________,
R________, O________, T________, and S________
• Why is CARROTS is a useful acronym?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Using Carrots
Information
Characteristic
Example
Complete
Accurate
Reliable
Relevant
Objective
Timely
Source
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Summary of Decision Making
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Problem solving
• When does a problem exist?
• A problem can result from past …. ?
• Why is it important to recognize that a problem exists?
• How do we define problem solving?
Problem Solving …
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
IADD Model
• The IADD model consists of four major steps,
I________, A________, D________, and D__.
• Investigate:
• Analyze:
• Decide:
• Do:
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
IADD Problem Solving Model
Q1. Why are knowledge work and decision making at the heart of problem solving?
Q2. Why is the IADD model shown as an unbroken loop?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Investigate
• During the Investigate stage, knowledge workers ….
• Problems can be defined or identified …
– (1)
– (2)
– (3)
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Analyze
• In the analyze stage ….
• What is the role of alternative solutions
generated during the analysis stage?
• How can IS can help with analysis:
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Decide
• In the decide stage knowledge workers ….
•
• During the decide stage, ….
• How do knowledge workers actually
decide which solution to pick?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Do
• What happens during the “Do” stage?
•
• What does the “Do” stage often require?.
•
•
•
•
•
Do it!
(1) _____________
(2) _____________
(3) _____________
(4) _____________
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Summary of IADD Problem
Solving Model
IADD Stages
Purpose of each stage of our problem solving model
Investigate
Analyze
Decide
Do
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Putting it All Back Together
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Questions to think about
• Can you explain how knowledge work
activities relate to (1) decision making and
(2) problem solving?
• How are decision making and problem
solving related?
Copyright 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.