Strategic Information System Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Strategic Information System - Essay Example These approaches tend to significantly aid in the development of the information system. These approaches can be used as a framework or as a guideline that provides steps which eventually lead to the final product. In a situation where requirements from the stakeholders continuously change the development team can make two approaches. The first is a socio-technical approach which takes into account the social and technical perspective before drawing up an information system for an organization. The second is agile methodology under which regular feedback is obtained from stakeholders to ensure that there are no mistakes being made while the system is being developed. Soft systems and socio technical approaches: Socio-technical approaches are basically approaches that help an organization take into account human and social aspects of an organization in addition to the technical matters, while developing an information system. These approaches have been used by a number of organization s in the past however, their use in recent years has steadily declined (Baxter & Sommerville, 2011). Socio-technical approaches are usually based on theories that revolve around social aspects involving individuals and the society that they are a part of. The technological part of this term does not necessarily refer to technology pertaining to materials and systems used, but rather it represents procedures that are used and knowledge that is related to those particular procedures (Baxter & Sommerville, 2011). Soft systems methodology is an approach that is used as an inquiry tool where an organization makes an inquiry into a problematic situation that is thought to exist within the real world (Checkland & Scholes, 1990). Problems can basically be categorized into two main categories hard and soft. Hard problems are problems that can be properly defined and can be solved using a technical predefined approach. Soft problems, on the other hand, are very difficult to clearly define (Cl arke, 2011). Within soft problems, there is a fluctuating factor of political and human activity. Moreover, there is no exact technical approach, which a person can use to solve a soft problem. In a number of cases, technological impact on the situation is not positive and may cause even greater problems (Checkland & Scholes, 1990). Advantages and disadvantages: The idea of developing a particular information system for an organization is to address a problem that occurs within that organization. Perceptions regarding the problem are different for every stakeholder of the organization. This then divides one single problem into a number of problems that are interrelated to each other in more than one ways. Socio-technical system helps the organization by citing the definition of the organization as one of the phases towards the solution of the problem in question (Checkland & Scholes, 1990). Socio-technical approach thus helps stakeholders on focusing on the nature of the problem pri or to working towards the procurement of the solution of the given problem. By clearly defining the problem, system developers would be able to address the real problem rather than forming a solution to the problem that they perceive is correct (Baxter & Sommerville, 2011). Methodologies such as soft system approach can only be used to analyze the weak points and fails to clearly specify how a system can be built using the information that is obtained from its analysis. In some cases, the problem is