Information Technology People Research Articles

Effective Communication Strategies for Business Analysts to Bridge the Gap between IT and Finance

As organizations depend more on technology to stay ahead of the competition, their information technology (IT) and business departments must work together closely. However, cultural differences and understanding between the specialized fields often make it hard for them to work together effectively. If these issues are fixed, they could make it easier to finish projects, stick to budgets, and agree on the company's goals. Many companies use business analysts to help people talk to each other by acting as liaisons knowledgeable in technology and finances. However, there is limited information in the literature about how analysts can connect the tasks. This study fills that gap by looking into the problems when IT and finance work together and suggesting specific steps analysts can take to improve strategic alignment. Looking at past studies shows that common differences make it hard for people to work together. IT and finance use different vocabularies for technical terms and project-based versus financial terms, leading to misunderstandings. They also set other priorities. It emphasizes speed of innovation and technical practicality, while finance emphasizes reducing risk, accuracy, and returns. There are also differences in the amount of knowledge and skill that people in IT and finance have regarding technical solution details and financial effects. They also use different ways to make decisions. IT bases judgments on technological factors, while finance assesses business impact. Besides, cultural norms diverge between the flexible and creative IT culture and the rigorous and methodical finance culture. Business analysts should utilize several focused communication strategies to close these gaps. Creating a shared vocabulary helps terms from diverse fields fit. Regular mapping and stakeholder conversations help you grasp other perspectives. Actively listening, repeating, asking questions, and summarizing shows you comprehend. Educating on decision-making variables and expertise broadens perspectives. Discussing cultural meanings and making sure individuals understand questions improves discussion. Using shared goals like increasing sales or lowering costs is another way to unite people around similar goals. By using these specific methods, business experts can help IT and finance work together despite cultural differences. Mapping and teaching regularly help keep relationships strong even as needs and staff change. By focusing on active listening, aligning vocabulary, and highlighting shared interests, you can build good working relationships necessary to get strategic benefits from technology investments.

Role assigning and taking in cloud computing

The widespread use of cloud computing (CC) has brought to the forefront information technology (IT) governance issues, rendering the lack of expertise in handling CC-based IT controls a major challenge for business enterprises and other societal organizations. In the cloud-computing context, this study identifies and ranks the determinants of role assigning and taking by IT people. The study’s integrative research links CC and IT governance to humane arrangements, as it validates and ranks role assigning and taking components through in-depth interviews with twelve IT decision-makers and forty-four Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) members, engaged as panelists in a Delphi technique implementation. The empirical results recognize skills and competencies as prioritized determinants of IT controls, while IT security, risk and compliance emerge as capabilities crucial to evaluate and manage CC service providers. Despite the study’s generalizability limitations, its findings highlight future research paths and provide practical guidelines toward the high technology of open-market IT self-governance. The latter entails the humane flows of collegial control and responsibility, as opposed to the inhumane flows of authority and power, under the sequestered technique of the bureaucratically-hierarchized IT hetero-governance

The Effectiveness of Information Technology (IT) Competence in Business Partnerships

The main responsibility of Information Technology (IT) in business is to acquire, implement and maintain technology investments, which belonged within the Information Systems. In order to achieve successful IT planning and implementation, shared knowledge becomes an important enabler of the alignment of business and IT objectives. This research evaluates how cross-functional competence in business and IT people provides the basis for effective partnership to develop. The objective is to conceptually define and empirically measure the variables of IT competence in business managers and of business competence in IT professionals, and test the measurements for validity and reliability. A Simple Percentage Method, chi-square tests, Tables and weighted average were used to get clear picture of analysis with results showing how both IT knowledge and IT experience are instrumental in defining IT competence of business people. The results of these showed that IT service delivery dimensions, IT system dimensions (quality, delivery, trustworthy and management) and IT core characteristics have statistical significant influence on effective IT competences among IT business people and IT cognitive dimensions which included knowledge, skills and experience.

Assessment of Lumbar Lordosis and Lumbar Core Strength in Information Technology Professionals.

Study DesignObservational study.PurposeTo correlate lumbar lordosis and lumbar core strength in information technology (IT) professionals.Overview of LiteratureIT professionals have to work for long hours in a sitting position, which can affect lumbar lordosis and lumbar core strength.MethodsFlexicurve was used to assess the lumbar lordosis, and pressure biofeedback was used to assess the lumbar core strength in the IT professionals. All subjects, both male and female, with and without complaint of low back pain and working for two or more years were included, and subjects with a history of spinal surgery or spinal deformity were excluded from the study. Analysis was done using Pearson's correlation.ResultsFor the IT workers, no correlation was seen between lumbar lordosis and lumbar core strength (r=–0.04); however, a weak negative correlation was seen in IT people who complained of pain (r=–0.12), while there was no correlation of lumbar lordosis and lumbar core in IT people who had no complains of pain (r=0.007).ConclusionsThe study shows that there is no correlation of lumbar lordosis and lumbar core strength in IT professionals, but a weak negative correlation was seen in IT people who complained of pain.

Contemporary Trends in the Information Technology (IT) World and its Transformational Effect on Chief Information Officer (CIO) Roles: Analytical Study

The word of IT is not, any more, exclusive for IT people and, to the contrary, it is becoming dominated more and more by business objectives and plans. Because IT is becoming a service or tool that was found and developed over decades to help business doing better using computers and networks to achieve business goals such as efficiency, resources utilization, making profit, reducing expenses, and expanding market share. If we look at few elements of the IT world such as devices, users and applications developed since the first decade of IT in mid 1940s, we can clearly see that users’ community has grown from thousands to billions of users all over the world. Similarly, software applications have grown to reach millions of software applications covering, again, billions of devices from desktop computers, notebooks, wearable devices, swallow-able chips and insulin pumps embedded in human bodies of some patients. Personalization and customizations are becoming major trend in each and every application and smart device that can monitor and track individual’s actions during day-today life i.e., travel, purchase, calls, transactions and many other types of uncountable actions. This research is going to explore the new image of IT world in the light of new trends that are shaping the directions of the IT world. Furthermore, the research is discussing the impact of these trends on related factors such as people, processes, technology, business, environment, and governments. This research will browse new trends in the IT world – Social, Mobility, Analytics, and Cloud (SMAC) – and their impact on the current role of Chief Information Officer which is clearly passing a major shift in its responsibilities and duties in the light of dramatic changes from business perspective and the security threats encountered within these emerging trends.

The Use of Business Metadata in Source-Transaction-Agent Modelling

Business process modelling is a way of representing an organisation to enable its analysis and improvement. The development of business process models which become more complex can be assisted by using metadata which are business metadata and technical metadata. Business metadata can act as a communication tool between business people and the technical information technology (IT) team. There is a need to match business metadata and technical metadata to assist effective communication between business people and technical IT people. Source-Transaction-Agent (STA) data model is introduced as a modelling technique that uses business metadata. STA data model uses business metadata to assist business and IT persons to communicate and participate effectively and efficiently in the business data modelling of a system development process. A study is done on five workshop groups, consists of 206 participants, to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of STA data model usage. The findings on the evaluation show that the STA data model is an effective and efficient data modelling technique. The participants were able to participate effectively and efficiently in the modelling process as the terms used are familiar and business-friendly.

Courses help foster network-savvy HTM professionals.

Courses help foster network-savvy HTM professionals.

Reference architecture, metamodel, and modeling principles for architectural knowledge management in information technology services

Capturing and sharing design knowledge such as architectural decisions is becoming increasingly important in firms providing professional Information Technology (IT) services such as enterprise application development and strategic outsourcing. Methods, models, and tools supporting explicit knowledge management strategies have been proposed in recent years; however, several challenges remain unaddressed. In this paper, we extend our previous work to overcome these challenges and to satisfy the requirements of an additional user group, presales architects that are responsible for IT service solution proposals. In strategic outsourcing, such solution proposals require complex, contractually relevant design decisions concerning many different resources such as IT infrastructures, people, and real estate. To support both presales and project architects, we define a common reference architecture and a decision process-oriented metamodel. We also present a tool implementation of these concepts and discuss their application to outsourcing proposals and application development projects. Finally, we establish twelve decision modeling principles and practices that capture the practical experience gained and lessons learned during the application of our decision modeling concepts to both proposal development and architecture design work on projects.

A Frontline Driver at Crossroads

A Frontline Driver at Crossroads

Van Horn's Rules

WARREN Buffett's first rule is Never lose money. His second rule is Never break rule Years ago, Isaac Asimov issued three rules for the robots in his book I, Robot. His first rule was Never harm a human being. If these people can have rules, so can I. Here then are the rules regarding technology that I have developed over the years. Rule 1. Technology should be designed from the user to the network center, not the other way around. This rule is so important, I may want to borrow Buffet's rule 2. Over the last 20 years, I have done consulting work in school districts and universities across the country. Almost without fail, I have had to remind Information Technology (IT) personnel of rule 1. All too often, IT people spend most of their time and energy thinking about servers, networks, switching gear, bandwidth, district databases, and other things in the network operations center that are well removed from the typical user. I find that school district IT people commonly spend most of their time and energies on administrative computing at the expense of teachers and students. Since superintendents and their staffs sign the IT people's checks, this may be a natural phenomenon. I visited one district with 50,000 students that had a dozen or so people devoted to administrative computing and just two people devoted to instructional computing. When I visited the district's schools, the situation was bleak. Specifically, technology systems should be designed in the following order: user [right arrow] output/input device [right arrow] software [right arrow] interface (operating system) [right arrow] hardware [right arrow] local area network [right arrow] wide area network [right arrow] operations center (servers and mass storage) [right arrow] extranet. All too often, people start thinking about hardware, not the user. My university recently changed the online program that lets faculty members enter final course grades. The old application had radio buttons for each possible grade. All you had to do to enter a final grade was to push the right button next to a student's name. The new application requires you to pull down a menu next to each student's name and scroll down to the grade you want to enter. Four hundred faculty members teaching about 1,200 courses now have to take more time entering final grades than before. I guess someone cared more about ease of programming an application than about the program's user interface. Rule 2. Not all users are alike in what they need or will use; match the technology to the user. Here are a few examples of the importance of rule 2. My eyesight is not what it used to be, so I have some trouble when I write on the computer--which I do a lot. Every few years, the university updates its computers to keep the faculty current. The last update was two years ago, and I was to receive an iMac with a 17-inch screen. I scrambled around and persuaded my department chairperson to pay the difference in price so I could get a 20-inch screen. The larger iMac screen is a blessing and allows me to write comfortably with my aging eyes. Someone needs to remember to ask users what they need. A prime example of designing technology to fit the user is allowing teachers to have a say in the kind of technology that is placed in their classrooms. Many teachers, if given the choice, would choose to have a document camera and a data/video projector instead of new classroom computers. The point here is that users are different and they have different needs. Several years ago, when I was in charge of my college's program to update technology, I classified users into three categories: power users, regular users, and occasional users (i.e., computer haters). Power users taught our high-tech courses like Instructional Design for Multimedia, and they needed workstation- class computers with very fast drives. Some regular users needed desktop computers; others needed laptops. …

Young Women’s Misinformation Concerning IT Careers: Exchanging One Negative Image for Another

Introduction Goal of the Research Numerous researchers have indicated that a particular piece of misinformation, the perception of Information Technology (IT) professionals as being geeks and loners, may be one of many explanations for the under-representation of women in Information Technology. In particular, Jepson and Perl (2002) identified a nerdy image of IT people as one of six reasons that girls do not choose IT careers. Hazzan and Levy (2006) identified a geeky and loner image as one of three factors discouraging women from IT careers, positing that women are more likely to be interested in careers involving more interaction with people. Margolis and Fisher (2002) suggested that women are more likely to be affected by the geek stereotype than men are, and thus, when women do not experience an intense obsession with computers, they are more likely to contemplate whether they really belong in the IT field. Eglash (2002) described the geek identity as not only a gender but also a race concern that acts as a gatekeeper and paradox in the participation of science and technology as it potentially hinders diversity. The purpose of this research was to determine if girls in the United States, ages sixteen through eighteen, at the age when they are making university and career choices, do indeed view IT professionals in this negative way. Significance of the Issue The geek/loner issue is important for multiple reasons. The predicted growth of IT jobs in the United States (Hecker, 2005), the shortage of IT professionals (McGee, 2005), and the under-representation of women in the IT field have raised serious concern regarding the US technology workforce in the 21st century (Camp, 1997; Grant, Knight, & Steinbach, 2006; Holzer, 2006; Lazowska, 2002; Sanders, 2005). According to the employment outlook for 2004-2014 by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (Hecker, 2005), and mathematical science occupations are projected to increase 30.7 percent, an additional 967,000 jobs. Of the 30 fastest-growing occupations during this time, six are in computer-related disciplines: network systems and communications analysts, application software engineers, systems software engineers, network and systems administrators, database administrators, and systems analysts. A 2005 study by the Society for Information Management (cited in McGee, 2005) lists critical shortages in IT project management and business domain experts for 2005-2008. McGee (2005) cites two reasons for the shortage of IT professionals. A 10 percent decline from 10 or 15 years ago in the number of students majoring in technology-related degrees has been estimated. Some universities report upwards of a 50 percent decrease in enrollment in these degrees. As baby-boomer professionals begin retiring, an expertise shortage will exacerbate the situation. There has been an 18.5 percent decline in the percentage of women in the IT workforce since 1996 (Information Technology Association of America, 2005). Women composed 32.4 percent of the total IT workforce in 2004. A third of these women are in administrative occupations such as data entry keyer and computer operator. If these administrative occupations are removed from the calculations, women IT professionals and managers fall to 24.9 percent, virtually the same percentage as in 2002. Over the past two decades, the number of young women in the US pursuing careers in Computer and Information Sciences (CIS) has significantly decreased. The National Center of Educational Statistics (2005) reported that in 1984, 32,439 undergraduate students received bachelor's degrees in CIS. Men represented 20,416 of the total (63 percent), while women were 12,023 (37 percent). However, in 2004, 59,488 students received their bachelor's degrees in CIS of which 44,585 (75 percent) were men and 14,903 (25 percent) were women. Thus, the percentage of CIS majors who are female has dropped from 37 percent in 1984 to just 25 percent in 2004. …

Creating social and intellectual capital through IT career transitions

Many organizations must continuously innovate with information technology (IT) to maintain their competitive position. This paper illustrates how the Clarica Life Insurance Company created a stream of business-enabling IT innovations after more than 70 career transitions of IT people into line business positions. The theoretical lens used to discuss this case is the Nahapiet and Ghoshal theory of co-creation of social and intellectual capital. After presenting the Clarica case study with three management profiles, we interpret the data to show how social capital led to an increase in intellectual capital and the organizational advantage that was achieved. We conclude with suggestions for extensions of this model and implications for research and practice.

Obtaining return on investment in information technology projects

This recent research addressed the question of whether companies were achieving benefits from investment in information technology (IT) and why this situation occurred at the micro, or project, level. The research took the perspective of mainly the business person rather than that of academics, technocrats or consultants. The research was both qualitative and quantitative in nature and employed both descriptive and causal analysis. It was conducted during 1993 and 1994 and focused on forty of Australia's top performing companies in terms of sales revenue (as cited in Business Review Weekly, 1992). The research covered all main industry sectors. Implications on an international level were then derived. The findings of this research are important for business. They show that companies are not performing well in achieving expected project benefits, and that organisations generally are not innovative in their use of IT. The key factors that influenced this result were related to management emphases on internal project factors and technical issues. Business needs to shift its focus more to managing external environmental influences on IT projects and people issues. It was apparent that IT project investments need to be managed as integrated processes which take into consideration the pervading cultural influences in the organisation as well as the dynamic business environment in which they occur.