IS pros and users on IS planning - causes of frustrations encountered

Information has emerged as an agent of integration and the enabler of new competitiveness for today’s enterprise in the global marketplace. An integration of planning with development and management through enterprise information resources - which capture and characterize the enterprise will shorten the response cycle and even allow for economic evaluation of information system investment.

In determining whether your current information systems meet your business requirements, you need to create an IS vision and develop a strategic plan for implementing new or improved systems to support your organization’s strategic direction. But in every task we aim to accomplish, it is inevitable that problems arise and we may encounter feelings of depression while working on something that is very vast value of. And it is not unusual for us to consider that developing an information system is really an immense load of work to be done. And that it will take great effort, time and skills to be able to generate one.

Most probably we are all acquainted with the word frustration. It is commonly associated with disappointment or any negative feedback on any situations. It is comparable to anger and disappointment. It is an emotional response to circumstances where one is obstructed from arriving at a personal goal. The more important the goal, the greater the frustration.

Frustration is often defined in different ways, making the subject itself somewhat ambiguous. Frustration was first introduced by Sigmund Freud as a concept both external and internal in nature and related to the concept of goal attainment. Frustration occurs when there is an inhibiting condition which interferes with or stops the realization of a goal. All action has a purpose or goal whether explicit or implicit, and any interruption to the completion of an action or task can cause frustration. For Freud, frustration included both external barriers to goal attainment and internal obstacles blocking satisfaction (Freud, 1921).

This concept of frustration as a duality is continued in the analysis of frustration as both cause and effect (Britt & Janus, 1940). As a cause, frustration is an external event, acting as a stimulus to an individual and eliciting an emotional reaction. In this case, the emotional response is the effect, and the individual is aroused by this external cause and a response is often directed towards the environment.

Frustration is an interference with the occurrence of an instigated goal-response at its proper time in the behavior sequence (Dollard et al). Because an instigated goal response entails only that the goal be anticipated, frustration is due to the expectation and anticipation of a plan. If the goal is unfulfilled, frustration is experienced because satisfaction was not achieved and hopes were suddenly thwarted.

I think one of the causes of frustrations between professionals and users in working in an Information System (IS) plan would that projects and tasks are carried out in the wrong order or there would be unnecessary reworking of some various fractions of the plan. This would cause delayed on meeting the desired deadline on the IS plan. Prolonged working on it would also mean lengthened burden on being stuck in finishing the project.

With regard to business, frequently there to too much focus on IT, so that the organization loses sight of business requirements. For example, one organization was trying to make a business case for workflow software. They were having trouble defining the benefits for the business case and an analysis revealed there was no business process design to create any benefits. The project leader thought that the possible general benefits of the software, like speeding up business processes, were automatic as a result of computerizing a process. Whereas in reality other factors, like reluctance to delegate, can mean just automating systems will not solve the problem.

You need to realize that information systems strategy is not a one-off but has to be changed continually to adapt to a changing environment and to capitalize on better ideas. So the highest level approach is based on the life cycle of creation, then operation, modification and finally disposal. But there should priority on spending time on modifying it. As all these processes can be seen as acting on the strategy, the strategy has to be designed to optimize all these processes. The view of IS strategy is a general plan of action to produce a general information systems design, which meets business objectives, aligns with the general business strategy and encompasses IT.

Resources are targeted more effectively as it is clearer what will make the most contribution to the business strategy. Resources are can also used more efficiently by seeing areas of commonality and the best order to carry out tasks from an efficiency point of view. Balancing effectiveness with efficiency enables you to get your priorities right and approve projects with more confidence and on exact time.

The second cause of frustration would be somehow related to first I have stated. Losing track on what is aimed to be achieved would cause unnecessary reworking on the project and this would also cause time-pressure on the deadline that needs to be met. I believe these two issues are interrelated to each other which are both derivation of frustration in working in an IS plan.

To be able to develop a good, strategized information system and to counter some frustration, I have here the following guidelines: Define business objectives correctly so that the IS strategy aligns with the business strategy. Scope the project properly. It is easy to miss out of the way offices or some products, services or business functions. Don't miss interaction between functions as do some approaches to strategy. Do projects in the right order to avoid or minimize re-working. If re-working cannot be avoided, make sure this is in the plan. The same applies to tasks, for example, don't try to design the database before you know what you want out of it, otherwise you will go round in circles re-working. Time is an important element in making a successful project. It should be well-managed and well-utilized to avoid extended deadline and that it would not cause hassle and difficulty to both the developer or the IS professional and its client or the user.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frustration
http://www.lilleyinfosys.co.uk/is-strategy.html
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=A515691C579272C8EFA138B26BB46DF1?doi=10.1.1.77.1411&rep=rep1&type=pdf