Mr. Dimpz Blog

Based on your adopted organization(s), identify and discuss barriers in their IS/IT implementation..

Barriers to achieving ideal intergovernmental systems...

These ideals are difficult to achieve because there are significant barriers to overcome. The Special Work Group identified many problems that state-local projects encounter. Among the top ranking barriers are:

A general lack of education and information about both technology and programs
Technology has rapidly permeated our society and most of our institutions, but government organizations often lag behind others. Government staff are often ill-informed and poorly trained in how to use information technology effectively. This is particularly true of the newest technical tools and platforms. Public employees, both users and technicians, seldom have ready access to skills training or professional development that continuously upgrades their knowledge and skills. Conversely, technical staff typically have few opportunities or incentives to learn the goals and operational realities of service programs and therefore tend to focus too sharply on the technical tools and too little on the programmatic reasons for new systems.

Lack of a shared, reliable computing and network infrastructure
Existing state-local systems suffer from the lack of a ubiquitous, consistent computing and communications infrastructure. This makes it difficult or impossible to operate technology supported programs in a consistent way from place to place and organization to organization. It also slows and complicates communication among state and local staff involved in joint programs. New York State is currently embarking on a statewide networking strategy called the NYT that will help solve this problem for future systems.

Goals that are too ambitious for the resources available to achieve them.
Project goals are often laudably comprehensive, but the staff, equipment, and dollars allotted to achieve them are often underestimated. Projects that could succeed on a smaller or incremental scale, fail to achieve success when their goals and resources are played out on different scales.

Human and organizational resistance to change.
In some cases, new state-local initiatives threaten a comfortable status quo. They promise big changes that not every participant is eager to see. Fear and resistance to change exist even in the best planned and managed projects. A new way of doing business threatens existing personal, organizational, programmatic, and political conditions by rearranging authority, influence, power, resources, and information. This natural resistance is exacerbated when new programs arrive with too little advance information, weak leadership support, inadequate user participation, too little funding, and less than comprehensive training and orientation.

Unrealistic time frames.
Many information systems projects take considerably longer than originally planned. State-local projects, with their added layers of legal and organizational complexity are especially vulnerable to this problem. Since so many different organizations are affected by them, time delays lead to serious difficulties in planning for and adjusting to changes in operations.

Organizational, programmatic, technological, and legal complexity.
The state-local environment is extraordinarily complex on a number of dimensions: organizational size, number of organizations, number and skills of staff, size of budget, financial practices, legal authority, programmatic focus, and geographic dispersion. Existing systems are an important complicating factor.Only so much change is possible in an environment that depends on information systems already in place — especially ones that were designed and implemented using older technologies. There is little that can be done to simplify this environment, making it essential that project participants have a good understanding of how it will affect their activities.

Changing priorities.
Any project that lasts more than a few months is subject to changing priorities for time, money, and attention. This problem is multiplied in state-local projects since each participating organization is likely to be working in circumstances and with responsibilities and priorities that are unique to its own situation.

Overlapping or conflicting missions among the participating organizations.

Government organizations at both the state and local level have public service and public accountability goals that can overlap or conflict, even when they are engaged in a joint project. For example, a state agency manager may have the role of project leader which implies facilitation, collaboration, and support for other participants. At the same time, that person’s agency may have oversight responsibility and financial and other regulatory means of compelling local compliance with state requirements. In other projects, non-profit service providers may be project participants sitting at the same table with state or local officials who license and inspect their programs.These roles are all legitimate but can conflict and become a source of difficulty in sorting out the working relationships within the project team.
The barriers are undeniable. But the potential benefits of successful systems are compelling reasons to go forward with well-designed state-local initiatives.

Other barriers in Implementing new system..
Human resource problems

• Insufficient skilled management in information-gathering and retrieving information
• Insufficient trained personnel at all levels
• Insufficient communication skills

Technical resource problems

• Need for modern information systems
• Difficulties in setting up information programme
• Problems in data processing
• Technical constraints to reproducing or copying documents
• Decoding statistics collected and the structure of statistical reporting
• Time factor in the collection and updating of information
• Need for qualitative aspects of information

Physical resource problems

• Need for publishing houses
• Need for documentation centres

Financial problems

• Need for funds for processing, printing and dissemination of information

Communication problems

• Production of incomprehensible information
• Insufficient understanding of the objectives, goals and aims of programmes
• Top-down approach
• Languages: media of communication
• Information-filtering
• Untargeted information
• Insufficient understanding among interest groups

Operational problems

• Need for co-ordination and networking among professionals and educational institutions
• Need for supportive policy to release information
• Insufficient access to information source
• Confidentiality
• Redundancy of information
• Nature of policy directives
• Need for identifying sources of information
• Centralization of activities
• Need for systematic documentation

Psychological and other problems

• Need for mutual trust between professionals and administrators
• Need for trust in information-sharing
• Need for of goodwill
• Competition between organizations
• Censorship
• War

2. How can these obstacles be effectively managed?

Human resource development

• Training
• Other capacity-building

Technical resource development

• Establish documentation centre (independent non-governmental institution for processing and disseminating information ?)
• Install modern information technology
• Create database
• Encourage small-scale publishing

Physical resource development

• Improve infrastructure
• Build documentation centre

Operational improvement

• Set clear policy guidelines on information dissemination
• Encourage government to have depository laws and enforce them
• Introduce information system
• Use mass media
• Follow a bottom-up approach
• Develop grassroots level inventory of information
• Create awareness of the value of information
• Identify user information needs
• Consult target groups
• Develop target-oriented and useable information
• Develop effective system of information management and dissemination; information should be simple, understandable and manageable
• Institute efficient and effective co-ordination and networking
• Encourage a free flow of information — horizontally and vertically



In our adopted company which is DOLE Philippines,Ms.Galindo mentioned some barriers in their IS/IT implementation.

Inexperienced Staff

People involve in the system should have the proper communication and social skills. Trainings and Seminars is important for them to upgrade and enhance their knowledge and improve their performance to the company.

Lack of IT/IS Awareness

The system that should be implemented in a company should be a user friendly. According to Ms. Galindo involving the user is very important when there is a development or a change of your system in the company or organization. In this way it will help both the IT people and the staff and the users to be aware of the other matters and the best solutions.

Lack of Resources

This barrier really affects the implementation of new system it’s because how can you implement your system if you have lack of resources to be use. Especially those very important resources like the programmers, system analyst and many more they are all considered as resources of a company.The company should have the resources or the budget, because having a system requires maintenance, probably hardware replacements.

Organizational Politics

A workplace can be conceptualized as a social marketplace in which individuals engage in transactions, all seeking to earn a return on their investments. The possibility of receiving a favorable return on one’s investment is contingent on the extent to which organizational rewards are perceived to be fairly allocated.
Politics help to recognize or even reconcile competing interests within an organization. Essentially, all employees bring their own interests, desires, wants, and needs to the workplace which leads to a diversity of interests in which politics form. Politics in an organization are viewed as both negative and positive. Everyone practices politics in some form or in some degree in an organization but viewing politics positively are considered to have a positive force within the organization. Relationships, norms, processes, performance and outcomes are all enormously affected and influenced by organizational politics due to the fact that they are all intertwined into the management system.
As we know, communication within an organization is the key element to success and achievement. A leader is an individual who should consider communication to be the most important aspect in their relationship within the organization. An employee and their leader need a high communication percentage in order to maintain success and achieve specific goals within the organization.

Time Pressure

Time is often in the form of meeting the project deadlines and getting the product within budget. Can also be considered as a barrier since it gives us limitations that we must follow. Such limitations can affect the developing process and the output.


references:

http://www.ctg.albany.edu/publications/guides/tying?chapter=3§ion=4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_politics