INFORMATION SYSTEMS FIELD STUDY

STUDY OF XYZ ORGANIZATION

By

Chandra S. Amaravadi

January 23, 2008

Department of ISDS Western Illinois University

IM 524 Amaravadi

Group ProjectWorth: 60 Pts

INFORMATION SYSTEMS FIELD STUDY

The objective of this assignment is to understand information systems in organizations and develop the ability to recommend/specify/implement a system. You need to identify a target organization off-campus interview personnel, report on its information systems and recommend/develop a suitable system. The project will be carried out in groups of two as assigned by the professor. Details of the study are described below.

STUDY ORGANIZATION

Identify a target organization off-campus such as an insurance company, bank, real estate, travel agency or a computer consultancy. You can choose any organization as long as it is off-campus and consists of atleast four employees. Obviously, larger organization such as K-Mart, McDonough Hospital etc. are preferred. You need to select the organization first, inform the professor and obtain approval. If it is already selected by a group, you may have to select another one. Please send email to . You can proceed only after you have informed me and gotten the OK.

Set up interview. Next you need to call the IT manager, let them know you are studying information systems for a course project and you would like to find out about their information systems. Please let them know that you do not need any confidential information. Set up an appointment. Please informprofessor via emailwhom you are interviewing (name and title), date and time, duration of interview. A couple of hours of interview preferably spread over two occasions would be reasonable. For grade purposes, we will limit number of hours of interview to a maximum of five i.e. your study should not exceed five hours spent with the client organization. It’s a good idea to type up your questions and pass them to your host in advance so they will have time to think about what you are wanting.

Obtain a brief background of the organization. What does the organization do? Example it could sell various types of insurance. What are its main products or services? Example home, auto, boat insurance. How many employees work there? If it is a branch, how many work in the parent company? What is the approximate level of sales? ($1m, $5m etc.). Is it a large, medium or small company? Who are the customers? Example, home owners in Western Illinois. What are the chief goals of management? sales, profitability, service etc. This may be confidential.

Obtain a brief description of their current information systems. What type of hardware do they use? IBM Mainframes, personal computers etc. You need to focus more on applications such as Accounting, inventory etc. Do they use the internet/web? What type of systems do they use? For what purpose? (Daily, weekly activities?) What functions do their systems fulfill? What sort of information is processed? Make a special attempt to identify their data needs. An example is, personal information of the customer such as “name,” “address,” “phone#,” “payment amount,” etc. Do they use databases (if it is a reasonably sized organization, same situation). Do they get reports? What type of reports? Do they have systems to support management? You may run into problem that some of the information can be confidential. Obviously, one should be sensitive about this.

Obtain information on impact of their systems. Are the systems supporting the business? Business benefits? Are they getting information that is required? Any information they are not getting? Any specific needs? Are the systems integrated? Are additional systems required? Future trends? What is their perception of systems? What is your assessmentof their systems? Are they meeting requirements? Do they have a lot of reporting? Is data being analyzed for business purposes? Management’s reactions? You have to obtain information of this type.

PREPARE RECOMMENDATIONS/IMPLEMENTATION

You need to recommend suitable systems for the organization based on one of the types of information systems discussed in the course (refer to intro ppts). You have to understand their needs and think about a suitable system. A system recommendation will include:

1) Specification or description -- This will be a verbal description of the system. If it is a database it would include an ER diagram along with the description of their needs.

2) Design – This is the design of the system. If it is an application, some sample screens, If it is a web page, a layout of the web page drawn as a diagram on paper. If it is a database design, structure of tables etc.

3) Pilot implementation – This is challenge you will have to surmount but feel free to ask for guidance. It could take the form of a crude website or a series of menus in Visual Basic or at the very least a set of tables and reports in a database. In the worst case, it could be a series of powerpoint slides. Alternatively you could recommend an off-the-shelf commercial package. If you choose an option other than powerpoint slides, you will receive two bonus points.

The default recommendation will be a database, which is the reason to pay attention to their data requirements.

PRESENT YOUR FINDINGS

  • All team members must participate in the presentations.
  • Each presentation should last 10-15 minutes plus five minutes for questions.
  • Begin your presentation by summarizing your study – what, where, who etc.
  • Then you can present your interview results and your preliminary recommendation.
  • Clarity is very important, speak clearly, articulate words/syllables clearly and speak with

sufficient volume that it can be heard by everyone in the class.

  • PLEASE DO NOT READ OUT THE PRESENTATION.
  • The presentation evaluation criteria are: style (5), clarity (5) and content (10).

Project Milestones and Deliverables:

Milestone / Due Date / Points / Comments
Identify target organization / 1/30/08 / 5 / Email to
Set up interviews / 2/13/08 / 5 / Email details to
Report on interviews / 3/18/08 / 10 / Hand report in class
Project presentation / 4/9, 4/16 / 20 / Sign up for slot on first come first serve, after 2/13/08.
Final report due / 4/30/08 / 20 + 2? / Includes field study results + recommendations

Report:

  1. Discuss background of the organization. Include the name and approximate location of the organization (e.g. Ralston Purina plant in Davenport) title of the person or persons who were interviewed, provided it is not confidential.
  2. Discuss their current IS setup – the systems used, the hardware, operating systems, software, applications, databases, web etc. Discuss their data needs
  3. Describe the business benefits and your evaluation of their systems.
  4. Your recommendations – this will be included as part of final report.

Submit a preliminary report containing parts “a,” “b,” “c” along with the names of your group members. There will be one submission per group. There are no length limits of the report, I am looking for reasonable effort. The report will probably be from 2-4 pages in length. You need to be very clear and use the terminology of the course. Avoid writing in the style of your speech, e.g. “The manager told us they were getting a new system…” This is called colloquial style. Contrast that with the following sentence, “According to the manager, the company was acquiring a new system….” Proof your report for typos and spelling errors. There is a half point penalty for each typo or spelling error.

Please do not waste money or time getting binders and other fancy packaging. The contents are the valuable part of your recommendations.

Use the cover page style of this assignment as the cover page style for your report. This way there is uniformity in the submissions.