Page 296 - Using MIS

264 Chapter 7 Processes, Organizations, and Information Systems

So
whAt? Workflow Problems

According to John Halamka, CIO of the Harvard Medical School
and Group Health System, “Most IT problems are workflow
3
problems, not software problems.” Using the knowledge of
this chapter, you know that workflow problems concern either
efficiency (ratio of costs to value delivered is too high) or
effectiveness (not contributing to the competitive strategy). So
what? Source: Franz Pfluegl/Fotolia
Who fixes a workflow problem? A computer programmer?
A network engineer? A database administrator? No, no, and
no. So who? Someone with knowledge of the business and, if
the workflow involves an information system, someone who is
knowledgeable and comfortable working with technical people.
Consider an example close to home. Suppose your university technical personnel, when needed, to effectuate changes to
has a limited number of classrooms with sophisticated information systems.
audiovisual display, and those classrooms are frequently assigned To do this well, you need to know IS_and_something: IS_and_
to professors who specialize in old-fashioned lecture and don’t marketing, IS_and_ operations, IS_and_finance.
use audiovisual display. Meanwhile, professors who want to use,
say, Learning Catalytics in their classrooms are making do with
poor-quality, hard-to-view computer-based display. Questions
How would you fix that problem? Change the software that
allocates classrooms? But how? Who decides what changes need 1. Using your own words, explain the meaning of the statement
to be made? And does it need to be done in software? Could “Most IT problems are workflow problems, not software
it be done by fixing a workflow? Is there a convenient point in problems.”
the professor–class assignment process in which professors 2. Consider the classroom assignment problem. Briefly describe
(or department chairs) can indicate which professors should three ways of solving that problem. Which of those three is the
teach in which classrooms? Or are classrooms allocated on a most promising? Why?
university-wide basis? Or maybe the audiovisual system is already 3. In your opinion, is the demand for professionals who know
generating metadata about its use, and without requiring anyone IS_and_something going to decrease? Increase? Stay about
to provide any extra data, someone in the Assign-Classroom the same? Justify your response; search the Internet for data to
workflow could use this data to allocate the classrooms? support your claim.
Who develops these alternatives? Who evaluates them? 4. If you were to become an expert in IS_and_something, what
Who implements them with the workflow workers? You! would the something be? Search the Internet for employment
Or it could be you. As you’ll learn in Chapter 12, a business prospects for that career choice.
analyst is someone who knows business, who understands an
organization’s competitive strategy and ways to implement it, 5. Examine your current plan of courses before you graduate.
and who knows enough information systems technology to be What courses do you need to add to your plan to learn IS_and_
able to model and design workflow changes and to work with something? Will you add these courses? Why or why not?

3 D. Peak, “An Interview with John Halamka, MD, Chief Information Officer, Harvard Medical School and CareGroup Health System, USA,” Journal of IT
Case and Application Research, 10, no. 1 (2008): 70.