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Address :
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Mulund (East), Mumbai 400081, India
E-mail : ajay_asp2000@yahoo.com
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Nowadays, many companies go for computer based M.I.S. for obvious benefits. If all such cases succeed in their purpose, it's well & good. But there are many cases of partial success and total failure. There are certain, specifically identifiable reasons for such aftereffect. All companies must take care of these reasons well in advance, to get due outcome of money invested in development and efforts taken & time spent in implementation. Some important reasons of such partial success and/or total failure are narrated below.
1-a] Objectives of such a project are not defined and not written down in words. There may be verbal discussion but the expected benefit is not stated in exact words. Some ambiguity remains in the minds of concerned people.
1-b] Wherever any objectives are identified, there is no differentiation between immediate objectives and long term objectives to be fulfilled in due course. It is quite possible that immediate objectives may get fulfilled but the M.I.S. may turn out useless for long term objectives.
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2] The users of such an M.I.S. are of two types. One is 'data entry operators' (and other staff at lower level in the hierarchy). The other is 'managers' at various levels in the hierarchy. In many cases, users from one of these types are not identified at all or are totally neglected.
3] Requirements of both these types of users are totally different. However, in many cases, all requirements are not fully identified in the beginning. More & more and varying requirements arise at some later stage during development cycle. Alternately or additionally, requirements are not specified or are narrated in ambiguous words.
4-a] Whatever system analysis is done is inadequate as regards objectives of the project. Forget of involvement, but the participation of top level managers (users at the highest level) is very superficial.
4-b] It is very essential that requirements or expectations of top level managers are specifically identified and noted down well in advance.
5] Many times, requirements of users keep on changing too frequently and it becomes impossible for development team to complete the task entrusted to it.
6-a] Members of development team tend to assume, rather than identify, understand, verify & acknowledge the requirements of users. Mutual discussion is often inadequate, whereas in-depth discussion & understanding is almost lacking.
6-b] It is equally likely that there is no verification at all from the users' side also, whether all members of development team have correctly understood the functioning of existing system as well as the requirements of various users or not.
7-a] In almost all cases, there is parallel running of manual & computer based MIS for initial period of implementation of computer based MIS. During this period, generally, the users transfer data from manual system to computer based MIS. But they find it very difficult or nearly impossible to establish correlationship between the two systems. The old &
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new systems don't get streamlined at all for the expected changeover to take place.
7-b] This happens because the system designer(s) and programmers often neglect this fact of gradual changeover from manual system to computer based MIS during transition period. They tend to assume that the computer based MIS will be implemented independent of existing manual system and that the working practices will be changed to suit the computer based MIS. But in reality, it doesn't happen so ! That leads to partial success or total failure.
8] The development team ignores the needs of operators & other beneficiaries while finalizing user interfaces and various combinations of data sorting criteria & data screening criteria for report generating programs. A common fact is that data entry is done only once, but on-screen enquiries are made many more times and analytical reports also are generated many more times. It is important to note that the users don't know anything about underlying databases & programming. They are always dependent on programmers for the ease & convenience in making on-screen enquiries and generating meaningful reports. Hence this aspect is important.
9] It is quite likely that, in many projects, there is total lack of explicitly defined accountability of the development team to operators & other beneficiaries of the computer based MIS. The performance review of development team is also lacking. This makes it difficult for users of new MIS to direct or navigate the working of development team towards their requirements, resulting in drifting & deviation.
10] Short cuts taken while designing database structures & user interfaces and finalizing the logic or algorithm to be followed when writing associated programs impact the utility of final package to considerable extent. Many times, such short cuts make it impossible to establish & execute internal linkages among various modules of the package.
It will be very much worth considering these situations before proceeding ahead and during development of computer based MIS, to make such projects totally successful.
This page is last updated on 2004 / 02 / 21
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