Unit 3: Using Information for Decision Making
3a: Explain the concept of business intelligence.
3a.1. Business intelligence (BI) is a vague term that combines aspects of reporting, data exploration, and ad hoc queries, and sophisticated data modeling and analysis.
A. Understand the term Analytics and how it is used to describe the extensive use of data, statistical, and quantitative analysis.
B. The benefits of BI and analysis offer organizations a competitive advantage. Understand how major corporations have used BI and analysis to grow their empire.
C. Understand the three factors necessary to make an effective decision.
3a.2. Static reports, dynamic reports, and dating mining are the three types of business intelligence.
A. Static reports are the most common form of BI. Static reports include summarized reports laid out and printed to assist in managerial decision making.
B. Dynamic reports are similar to static reports but are online and interactive. A manager can view a summary on a dashboard and dig to expose the level of detail necessary for that report.
C. Data mining uses computer programs and statistical analysis to search for unexpected patterns, correlations, trends, and clustering in data.
3b: Compare and contrast system design methodologies.
3b.1. Information systems (IS) affect most management functions and are essential to competitive advantage and survival in the “new global digital economy”. Organizations are under pressure and need to adapt to changes and align themselves with newly introduced information systems.
A. Understand why IS projects frequently failed and what organizations can do to turn failures around.
B. The three basic stages of a design methodology are: plan, develop, and manage. Understand the definition and use of each of these stages.
C. Methodologies provide users with ways of thinking, doing, and learning.
3b.2. Methodologies are developed and used in systems development. Each methodology differs in details and the expected work products.
A. Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISPM) seeks to integrate and to align strategic objectives with an existing IS plan or business need.
B. Business Process Re-engineering (BPRM) is used to maximize corporate profitability by redesigning and transforming the organization’s business processes.
C. System Development Methodologies (SDMs) are used to design different types of information systems such as transaction processing systems, enterprise information systems, decision support systems, etc.
D. Information Security Methodologies (ISM) assist organizations to establish a security plan to address vulnerability associated with unauthorized misuse of information.
Prepare for the final exam by reading “Chapter 5: Information Systems Methodologies”.
3b.3. Organizations use different methodologies depending on the need by project.
A. Waterfall methodology is the oldest and most known methodology used to coordinate the efforts of IS development.
B. Agile methodology is based on the belief that projects should be small with minimal features.
C. Understand the comparison between hard and soft methodologies.
3c: Analyze how data warehousing and data mining can be used as part of an organization’s strategy.
3c.1. A data warehouse is a set of databases designed to support decision making in an organization. It is structured for fast online queries and exploration. Data warehouses may aggregate enormous amount of data from many different operational systems.
A. Data warehouses and data marts are repositories for large amounts of transactional data awaiting analytics and reporting.
B. Large data warehouses are complex, can cost millions, and take years to build.
C. List issues that need to be addressed in order to design, develop, deploy, and maintain data warehouses and data marts.
Prepare for the final exam by reading “Chapter 11, Section 5: Data Warehouses and Data Marts”
3c.2. Data mining is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets.
A. Data mining starts with “Knowledge Discovery in Database”. Data mining is one of the steps in the process of knowledge discovery in database.
B. Understand the five steps in the knowledge discovery process.
C. Understand the key areas where businesses are leveraging data mining.
D. Data mining tools help spot underlying trends in modern data sets.
Prepare for the final exam by reading “Chapter 11: The Data Asset: Databases, Business Intelligence, and Competitive Advantage”, “Chapter 10: Business Intelligence Analysis of App Sales Data”, and “Data Mining: A Simple Guide for Beginners”
Unit 3 Vocabulary List
This vocabulary list includes terms that might help you answer some of the review items above and some terms you should be familiar with to be successful in completing the final exam for the course.
Data mart
Data mining
Data warehouse
Knowledge discovery in database
Methodology
Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISPM)
Business Process Re-engineering (BPRM)
System Development Methodologies (SDMs)
Information Security Methodologies (ISM)
Business Process Re-engineering
Agile
Waterfall
Formalized methodologies
Method engineering
Transformational projects
Methods
Problem situation
Problem-solving processing
Hard methodologies
Soft methodologies
Ad-hoc methodologies