Implications for Managers
THIS RESEARCH DEMONSTRATES THAT PROBLEMS related to Cost account significantly
for those related to Implementation. Longer (no. 32 in F5) and more expensive (no.
46 in F5) SISP studies incur greater difficulty securing top management commitment
for implementing proposed plans (no. 16 in F2). The importance of Cost corroborates
the empirical finding that functional managers feel current SISP practices are badly
structured and too demanding. They do not want planning to "get bogged down in
detail, need endless meetings, involve too many people or fudge responsibility about
who is responsible for what" [53, p. 18].
Cost may also have arisen as the key factor because planning is too often conducted
with greater attention to form than to output quality [66] and hence wastes time and
money. In addition, longer planning periods may offer more time for a business to
change [22] and thus may make final plans inadequate.
All of this implies that managers should develop information systems plans rapidly
and thus inexpensively. This recommendation is consistent with such intuitive observations
as "many solutions to the IS planning issue likely hedge on making the process
more efficient" [25, p. 355]. While the results also suggest that managers seriously
consider Organization, Database, and Hardware issues, a major contribution of this
research is the implication that managers need to enhance the efficiency of the SISP
process while maintaining its effectiveness.
To develop plans quickly and efficiently, management should be prepared to "go
for 90 percent now, not 100 percent next year" [53, p. 22]. Perhaps the entire planning
process requires 80/20 solutions where 80 percent of the benefits are realized through
20 percent of the effort [22]. Thus, the aim of SISP should be to zero in quickly on the
key projects to implement. Management's challenge is therefore to address Organization,
Database, and Hardware issues while at the same time controlling the Cost of
planning.