Table of Contents
The University of Pittsburgh is a moderately-sized institution in an economic, social, and political climate that demands the ability to respond to local, regional, national and international changes in a timely and relevant manner. To facilitate such responsiveness, University leaders must utilize information about all aspects of the enterprise and must change the way the University community performs work, makes decisions, and plans. The University is a classical organization attempting to transform itself into a modern organization. To accomplish this transformation, the University administration needs to actively plan for the implementation of essential infrastructure components that will provide a consistent direction guiding the University into the twenty first century.
The project team employed methods from process reengineering and architectural approaches for building information systems in developing the framework and strategy. The methodologies were based on the assumptions that: (1) information processing technology empowers users and customers to reengineer processes, and (2) reengineered processes determine the need for information technology. As a result, two parallel efforts were undertaken, one to define an enterprise-wide information architecture, and the second to define a methodology for process reengineering. Because the same group of people were involved in each of these efforts, the relationships between the two efforts were coordinated.
The information architecture effort articulated a philosophy and set of architectural principles, and developed a set of working prototypes to illustrate the architecture. The process innovation effort adopted a methodology and selected the procurement process as a prototype to refine and test the methodology.
The project team led an analysis of 12 administrative areas of the University, including academic units, business units, and a regional campus. The analysis sought to identify a set of basic information processing tasks common to all application areas. In addition, the project team interviewed over 80 individuals in other business and academic units to perform a general information system assessment. The team also formed three focus groups to help articulate the basic philosophy and principles for the information architecture. These efforts resulted in a philosophy statement that was individually reviewed by over 100 people in the University and was published in the University Times and in the minutes of several key University committees for general comment and suggestions. This statement and its associated principles, documented in the next chapter, form the general framework for the architecture and an administrative structure for process innovation and information system development.
The information processing needs expressed by users fit broad categories such as information ownership, availability, access, decision support, report generation, work flow, paper flow, ease of use, sharing of information, and functional integration. Users expressed other concerns related to organizational structure, work life, services, and information systems, as summarized below.
The University is a functionally-oriented organization whose vertical structure and information systems reflect this orientation. The process chains (such as procurement process chain) are long, convoluted assembly lines that are plagued by inefficiencies, delays, excessive paper, multiple levels of authorizations, errors, lack of access to information and customer dissatisfaction. Personnel are specialized, lack adequate access to electronic information and spend too much of their time on work flow and paper flow issues. Processes are badly in need of significant reductions to the costs of delivering services and radical improvements to the quality of the services delivered.
Central information systems at the University are proprietary (closed), platform dependent, file oriented, host-centric, and character based. The software is old, not highly integrated, mostly batch oriented and paper based. The Integrated Student Information System (ISIS) is an exception with on-line inquiry, better integration and on-line entry for some segments of the University. But it is difficult to use and lacks easy access by end users. In addition to the central systems, over 140 decentralized (campus, school, and departmental) systems use a file server architecture and duplicate many of the central system functions and data. Many of these systems evolved because central information systems did not adequately meet user needs.
Application software is specialist oriented (not flexible), highly coupled (logic, data and interface), integrated via brittle bridging software, functionally limited, not portable (no choices for hardware and system software), difficult to maintain, do not use standard, published API's and have end-user interfaces that are not compliant with human information processing and human factors principles. There are many "dumb" terminal devices in use for administrative applications. The existing intelligent desktop devices are not integrated into systems and rely on terminal emulation software that does not easily permit incorporating applications into personal productivity tools and local applications. Some specialized applications that could more conveniently service customers (such as public kiosk's for service information and student self-registration) are not available.
Data and documents are extremely difficult to find and access, and ad hoc queries from desktop devices to central data sources have been virtually non-existent. Ad hoc queries require writing custom software or getting downloads of central data to a database where the ad hoc queries can be processed. This inability to permit end-users to formulate ad hoc queries to be processed against central data is costly in terms of its consequent duplication of personnel, data, and technology. Permitting authorized users direct access to all central system data for ad hoc queries and locally developed or acquired applications would eliminate a significant amount of software customization and ad hoc report generation by Administrative Information Systems (AIS).
Data and document management by AIS and the library system is performed quite well, but represents at a maximum only about 50% of all the data and documents generated and acquired by units within the University. Policies, procedures, minutes, brochures, syllabi, vitae, reports, schedules, floor plans, wiring diagrams, maps, etc. are data and documents that represent the other half of the information that needs to be managed. The use of information directories, message handling systems and work flow technologies will become essential to an integrated workplace.
The network and communications infrastructure of the University is the strongest part of our technology base. It has been keeping pace with new technologies, standards and user demands. This infrastructure is essential to networked applications, messaging, multimedia documents and a client/server architecture. The investment in these technologies must continue.
All units in the University have an information system, whether it is automated or manual. Each of these systems has an architecture that has gradually evolved over the years in an attempt to meet the information needs of its users. Unfortunately, there are still misfits between these systems and the information needs of users due to a lack of resources, lack of access to needed information, lack of control over information processing, and other factors.
In order to create a new environment, the principle foci must be on the customers, the quality of the services and products provided, the cost effectiveness of providing services and producing products, making informed decisions, and the quality of work life afforded those who perform work and manage activities. There are two highly inter-related efforts required to support these foci, namely, reengineering processes and building an information architecture to support the processes.
To succeed at reengineering its work, the University must be viewed as a set of inter-related core processes rather than a set of isolated functional activities or work tasks. Each of the core processes must be analyzed and reengineered in such a manner that the benefits of modern information systems and information technology can improve quality and reduce overall costs. The core processes, sub-processes and high level analyses of these processes are presented in terms of process maps and other diagrams.
The process innovation approach taken for this project is one that requires discarding old ideas and attitudes and evaluating and re-thinking how work is done at the University. It requires adopting radical changes and relies on the capability of information technologies to support these changes. The approach provides a methodology for implementing process innovation at the University. This methodology is based upon successful implementations in other organizations and was refined and tested during a process reengineering experiment for the procurement process conducted as part of this project. The approach also provides an organizational structure to manage process reengineering, with roles and responsibilities outlined.
The project takes an architectural approach to designing new information systems at the University. An architectural approach simply means that all systems and related applications implemented to support process-related activities follow a set of principles and a technological pattern that is consistent and structured. An information architecture is a statement of how information technology can be organized to serve multiple functions. The architecture for process reengineering is a statement of what processes exist in an organization, how these processes can be changed and the impact of change on the economic, management, human resource and information systems.
Unlike the architecture of a bridge or building, an architecture for information and process reengineering is more of a process than a product. The architecture results in a set of documents that should act as a "living document" which is updated on a continuous basis as the University environment and the technology changes.
Three organizational units will play a prominent role in the implementation of the proposed architecture and process innovation initiatives. The first, an advisory committee, will be formed to provide overall guidance, direction, and priority setting. The second, an Advanced Technology Group, will be formed within CIS to investigate and implement emerging technologies, as well as to develop the technical capabilities for staff in AIS and other CIS units. Finally, CIS will assume the ongoing responsibilities of the Information Architecture and Process Innovation Project, ensuring that the architecture evolves and grows with changing technology and that the process reengineering efforts are related and refined.
University Information System Advisory Committee (UISAC): The basic organizational structure proposed for policy formation and implementation of the information architecture centers around the creation of the University Information System Advisory Committee (UISAC). The UISAC will be composed of representatives from the University community, including academic units, administrative units, regional campuses, CIS, the Board of Trustees, and one outsider. The committee will be approximately ten people but a much larger number of representatives from academic and business units will be included on its working groups.
The UISAC will be given responsibility for creating an enterprise-wide business and information system strategy, and for making policy and funding recommendations for information system and reengineering projects proposed by academic and administrative unit design teams and by CIS. An equal number of users and administrators will comprise the membership on the UISAC. The UISAC will report to the Senior Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance.
Advanced Technology Group: One of the critical elements for any information systems organization in this age of rapid technological development is to keep a staff trained in the use of new and productive technologies and techniques. The recommended approach to this issue is to form a group whose function is to develop applications using the newest technologies and techniques available on a prototype scale. This group could attract faculty and advanced students to work with CIS personnel on projects that are developmental in nature but have a potential payoff for the University. Such a group could also begin to attract external funding as well as become a beta site for hardware and software vendors.
The UISAC will act as the steering committee for guiding process innovation at the University. CIS staff will act as the Reengineering Project Facilitators at the University. The UISAC will develop priorities and initiate plans for process reengineering projects in conjunction with CIS.
Implementation of the Information Architecture will be based upon a set of principles taken from the Oregon Experiment rather than a master plan approach. Such principles were found to be highly successful in designing and building the University of Oregon over the last 20 years. These principles are:
1. Organic order: The planning and implementation of the information architecture will be guided by a process that allows the whole to emerge gradually from local implementations, guided by the proposed information system philosophy and structure.
2. Participation: All decisions about what will be built, and how it should behave will be in the hands of the users at various levels. This is based on the assumption that users help shape the environment and know their needs best.
3. Piecemeal growth: The implementations undertaken in each budgetary period will be weighted overwhelmingly towards small projects since large scale development hinges on a view of the environment that is static and discontinuous. Piecemeal growth hinges on dynamic and continuous growth.
4. Patterns: All design and implementation will be guided by a collection of communally adopted design principles, called information processing patterns, that will guide the design of everything. The patterns may be very large ones or very small and specific ones. Some patterns will deal with the behavior of computer interfaces, some with the distribution of data, some with hardware configurations, some with network protocols, and others with database access methods.
5. Diagnosis/Evaluation: The well being of the architecture and the envisioned information system will be protected by an annual diagnosis/evaluation system which will explain, in detail, which information system activities are alive and which are dead, at any given moment in the history of the system. The feeling for work life will always outstrip the current patterns for processing information.
6. Coordination: The slow emergence of organic order in the whole will be assured by a funding process that regulates the stream of individual projects put forth by users. The use of a standard template to fund projects, describe projects, describe patterns of information processing, perform diagnosis and estimate costs will aid in prioritizing projects.
Introduction,
Framework for Building Information Systems
Philosophy and Principles
Architectural Overview
Summary
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(Return to Reshaping the Enterprise: An Overview)
