System Implementation
Subject: Information Systems
Lecturer : Quratulain
Course Code: CIT - 667
● installation
● Documenting the system
Content ● Training the user
● Implementation Failure
System Implementation ● Maintenance
Installation
• The organizational process of changing over from the
current information system to a new one
• Four approaches
– Direct Installation
• Changing over from the old information system to a new one by turning
off the old system when the new one is turned on
– Parallel Installation
• Running the old information system and the new one at the same time
until management decides the old system can be turned off
Installation
– Single location installation
• Trying out an information system at one site and using the
experience to decide if and how the new system should be
deployed throughout the organization
– Phased Installation
• Changing from the old information system to the new one
incrementally, starting with one or a few functional components
and then gradually extending the installation to cover the whole
new system
Planning Installation
• Considerations
– Data conversion
• Error correction
• Loading from current system
– Planned system shutdown
– Business cycle of organization
Documenting the System
• System documentation
– Detailed information about a system’s design specifications, its
internal workings and its functionality
– Internal documentation
• System documentation that is part of the program source code or is generated
at compile time
– External documentation
• System documentation that includes the outcome of structured diagramming
techniques such as data flow and entity relationship diagrams
Documenting the System
• User Documentation
– Written or other visual information about an application system,
how it works, and how to use it
• Preparing user documentation
– Traditional source has been information systems department
– Application-oriented documentation is now often supplied by
vendors and users themselves
Training Information System Users
• Potential training topics
– Use of the system
– General computer concepts
– Information system concepts
– Organizational concepts
– System management
– System installation
Training Information System Users
• Training methods
– Resident expert
– Computer-aided instruction
– Formal courses
– Software help components
– Tutorials
– Interactive training manuals
– External sources, such as vendors
Training Information System Users
• Electronic performance support system (EPSS)
– Component of a software package or application in which training
and educational information is embedded
Supporting Information System Users
• Support is extremely important to users
– user support is number one criterion contributing to user
satisfaction with personal computing
• Most organizations provide support by two means
– Information center
– Help desk
Supporting Information System Users:
Information center
• An organizational unit whose mission is to support users in
exploiting information technology
• Staff might perform the following tasks
– Install new hardware or software and set up user accounts
– Consult with users writing programs in fourth-generation languages
– Extract data from organizational databases onto personal computers
– Answer basic on-demand questions
– Provide a demonstration site for viewing hardware and software
– Work with users to submit system change requests
Supporting Information System Users:
Help desk
• A single point of contact for all user inquiries and problems about a
particular information system or for all users in a particular department
Why Implementation Sometimes Fails
• Two conditions necessary for a successful
implementation
– Management support of the system under development
– Involvement of users in the development process
Why Implementation Sometimes Fails
• Insights about implementation process
– Risk
– Commitment to the project
– Commitment to change
– Extent of project definition and planning
– Realistic user expectations
• Implementation success factors
– Extent to which system is used
– User’s satisfaction with system
Project Close Down
• Evaluate team
– Reassign members to other projects
• Notify all affected parties that the development project is ending
and that you are switching to operation and maintenance mode
• Conduct post-project reviews
• Close out customer contract
– Formal signoff
Maintenance
• Maintenance phase - monitor and support the new system
to ensure it continues to meet the business goals
• Two primary maintenance activities:
1. Build a help desk to support the system users
• Help desk - a group of people who responds to knowledge workers’ questions
2. Provide an environment to support system changes
Conducting System Maintenance
• Corrective maintenance
– Changes made to a system to repair flaws in its design, coding, or
implementation
• Adaptive maintenance
– Changes made to a system to evolve its functionality to changing business
needs or technologies
• Perfective maintenance
– Changes made to a system to add new features or to improve performance
• Preventive maintenance
– Changes made to a system to avoid possible future problems
Conducting System Maintenance:
The Cost of Maintenance
• Many organizations allocate eighty percent of information
systems budget to maintenance
• Factors that influence system maintainability
– Latent defects
– Number of customers for a given system
– Quality of system documentation
– Maintenance personnel
– Tools
– Well-structured programs
Conducting System Maintenance:
Measures of Effectiveness
• Number of failures
• Time between each failure
• Type of failure
• Mean time between failures (MTBF)
– A measurement of error occurrences that can be tracked over
time to indicate the quality of a system
Controlling Maintenance Requests
• Determine type of request
– Error
– Adaptation
– Enhancement
• Figure 10-9 shows a flowchart for a request procedure
Configuration Management
• The process of assuring that only authorized changes are made to the
system
• Baseline modules
– Software modules that have been tested, documented, and approved to be included in the
most recently created version of a system
• System librarian
– A person responsible for controlling the checking out and checking in of baseline modules
when a system is being developed or maintained
• Build routines
– Guidelines that list the instructions to construct an executable system from the baseline source
code
Electronic Commerce Application:
Pine Valley Furniture
• System implementation and operation of an Internet-based electronic
commerce project is no different than other projects
• Develop test cases
– Simple functionality
– Multiple functionality
– Function chains
– Elective function
– Emergency/crisis
• Bug tracking and system evolution
• Alpha and beta testing the WebStore
• WebStore installation
What’s Next
Case Study
