Who Evaluates Technical Managers Chief Information Officer Corporate IT professionals Database administrators and Network administrators Business Managers Senior managers Strategic planners ID: 588793
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Evaluating Decision Support Systems ProjectsSlide2
Who Evaluates
Technical Managers
Chief Information Officer,
Corporate IT professionals,
Database administrators, and
Network administrators
Business Managers
Senior managers,
Strategic planners,
Business development managers,
Competitive intelligence analysts, and
Market researchers Slide3
Evaluation Questions
What is the return on investment for a proposed DSS project?
What is the payback period?
What is the opportunity cost?
What are the anticipated benefits?
What can we do with a new system that we cannot do with our current information systems?
Do our competitors have a data warehouse or OLAP or an EIS? Slide4
Scope of DSS Project Evaluation
Evaluation activities should be commensurate or proportionate to the size, complexity and cost of a proposed DSS project
Project sponsors and project managers must decide what amount and type of evaluation is appropriate and necessary in their company’s Information technology management environment
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An On-Going DSS Project Evaluation Process
Initial idea stage
Formal feasibility analysis
Scheduled milestones
Prior to full-scale implementation
Follow-up evaluation
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Evaluation Tools and Techniques
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Scoring Approach
Incremental Value Analysis
Qualitative Benefits Scenario Approach
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Cost-Benefit Analysis
Systematic, quantitative method for assessing the life cycle costs and benefits of competing alternatives
Explicitly state assumptions
Disregard sunk costs and prior result
Estimate direct and indirect costs and benefits
Discount costs and benefits
Perform sensitivity analysis
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Cost-Benefit Process
Determine Problem Definition and Project Objectives
Document current decision process
Establish System Life-Cycle and user demands
Define alternatives to proposed project
Collect Cost and Benefit Data
Document assumptions
Estimate Costs and Benefits (direct, indirect, tangible, intangible)Establish measurement criteria (specially for benefits)
Evaluate alternatives (NPV, Benefit/Cost Ratio, Payback)
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Cost Factors
Direct Hardware, software
Project personnel costs
Support services (vendors or consultants)
Process change costs (people, material)
Incremental Infrastructure costs
Other implementation costs
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Benefit Factors
Improved access to data
Improved accuracy and consistency of data used in decision making
Faster access to decision support
Cost savings from process improvements
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Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
A simplified analysis where one assumes that all of the alternatives have either the same benefits or the same costs. The analysis is simplified because only benefits or costs needs to be calculated
The best alternative is the one with the greatest benefits or the lowest cost
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Scoring Approach
Select a rating system to make numerical comparisons
Have multiple raters evaluate each alternative on benefit and cost factors
Weight the benefit and cost factors in terms of importance
Calculate a weighted score for each alternative
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Other Scoring Factors
Business Justification
Aligned with strategy
May provide competitive advantage
Competitors response
Technical Viability
Infrastructure Risk
Development Resources
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Incremental Value Analysis
Establish list of benefits a proposed DSS must achieve to be acceptable
Establish maximum cost to attain benefits
Build Prototype and assess benefits and costs
Revise prototype until benefits attained within cost constraints or cost exceeded
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Qualitative Scenario Approach
Envision the DSS Project implemented
Describe the use of the proposed DSS
Discuss benefits that result from the new Decision Support Systems, give specific examples
Check for consistency and plausibility
Discuss risks and uncertainties
Estimate upper and lower bounds on costs and development schedule
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Evaluating International and Cultural Issues
Potential Users of DSS
Location?
Cultural and ethnic backgrounds?
Data sources?
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Location Issues?
Telecommunications infrastructure
Time zone differences
Technology standards
Regulations
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Cultural Issues?
English versus other languages?
Pace of life – slow versus fast
Work hours
Nationalism and holidays
Cultural assumptions
Information sharing norms
Decision making practices
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Data Sources?
Transborder data flow – what data can be collected and shared?
Accounting and Currency Issues
Data formats, legacy systems
Data cleaning
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Localizing a Decision Support System
User Education and sensitivity to user needs
User Interface
Allow for translation
Use icons and symbols that are globally recognized
Translate help pages
Check for political and cultural meaning in word choice, labels and icons
Emphasize graphics
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