Showing papers by "James D. McKeen published in 1996"

Object-oriented technology: getting beyond the hype

Abstract: These days, everyone in the Information Systems (IS) world is talking about object-oriented technology --- known as "OO" to its aficionados. The enthusiasm about OO has even reached the mainstream press (Hammonds, 1991) and executives are hearing success stories about dramatic productivity gains and "programming with lego blocks" (Hammonds, 1991). Within IS, some people are talking about an OO "revolution" that will dramatically change how IS does its work and which has the potential to eliminate or significantly reduce IS staffs.All this hype is putting IS managers under pressure to get on the OO bandwagon. Once again, managers are being asked to make critical decisions about an unproven technology. On the one hand, IS is actively looking for new ways of improving its quality and productivity. On the other hand, managers know from bitter experience the problems and costs of introducing a new technology. This paper attempts to look critically, beyond the hype, at the current state of OO technology to identify the issues managers must face in making decisions about using it in their organizations.In order to explore and assess what IS organizations are doing with OO technology, the authors convened a focus group of senior IS managers from ten leading Canadian firms representing five industry sectors: retailing, manufacturing, banking, communications, and insurance. Group members were asked to speak about their current encounters with OO, the benefits and problems they have experienced to date, and other issues they are dealing with surrounding the introduction of OO technology in their organizations. This paper first gives a brief overview of OO technology and its relationship to other IS technologies. It then evaluates the key benefits and problems organizations can expect in introducing and using OO. Finally, it attempts to answer some key questions about how and when to introduce OO in an organization.

Measuring IS: how does your organization rate?

Abstract: In today's difficult economy, companies are reorganizing and streamlining wherever possible in order to save money and attract customers. This new corporate emphasis on better organizational performance, i.e., both productivity and quality goods and services, challenges all parts of an organization, including IS, to make improvements in what they do and how they operate. This is easier said than done and many organizations are having difficulties knowing where to start, what to do, and what their goals should be. Organizational learning change are the hallmarks of business in the nineties and the starting point for this effort is the collection of accurate and adequate information and its appropriate analysis.It is not surprising therefore that comparison, measurement, and evaluation have become something of a preoccupation in many businesses in recent years. The U.S. National Quality Institute, (which establishes the detailed criteria for the Malcolm Baldridge Awards), suggests there are three components of effective information and analysis which act as the "brain center" driving the corporate improvement effort, regardless of a company's organization or structure (Baldridge Criteria, 1993):1. Scope and management of quality and performance information.2. Collection, analysis, and use of company level data, including customer data and operations data, and linking performance data to overall financial performance.3. Competitive comparisons and benchmarking.These criteria can also be used by individual corporate subunits to determine how well they contribute to overall quality and performance.One organizational subunit receiving a considerable amount of executive attention in this regard is the information systems (IS) function. Many companies are looking to information technology to help them support corporate restructuring, but to do it with increasingly fewer resources. Unfortunately, IS has also been an area of the company that has been extremely difficult to measure and evaluate. IS also continues to have a credibility problem in some organizations where executives believe that IS has contributed little or nothing to the corporate bottom line (Roach, 1989). As well, there are still many users who tend to feel that IS service is lacking or could be bought cheaper elsewhere. With IS budgets coming under closer and closer scrutiny, IS itself is placing new emphasis on measurement to demonstrate its contribution to overall corporate performance, both through quality services and systems and through its ability to do so cost-effectively.This paper looks at the three components of information and its analysis, as outlined above, from the perspective of the IS subunit. It summarizes what IS departments are doing to assess and analyze their organizations and makes suggestions about how the measurement and evaluation of IS both internally and externally could be improved.