Understanding information systems and management

Information management is the key to an organization and its success. Keeping an eye on the principles of information management would make up for the effective total information management in the organization.

The first and foremost of the principles is to recognize the complexity involved in information management. With this complexity in place it is necessary to overcome the challenges in the environment to implement information management properly.

 

To overcome complexity it is necessary to focus on just one task at hand and complete it effectively. This involves focusing on one technology in isolation and then making it successful. You have to keep in mind the challenges involved in your environment and accordingly you may choose the software packages. Depending on one vendor to solve all you problems might make it more complex.

 

The software installed should be adopted by your staff for successful implementation. This is another principle that has to be focused. Just installing and software alone would not make your organization successful. You have to train your staff so that they adopt it easily in their daily tasks. What you call as ‘active participation’ is necessary for successful implementation of information systems. The required data from the various departments have to be captured by the information systems software, which is done only by the active participation of the staff.

 

The other principle is to deliver visible and tangible benefits to the staff. It is not going to be visible if you improve the system behind the scenes. It should be made visible to the staffs that are using the system. Then only it is possible to make them adapt to the changes made in the organization. Any visible improvement in the system would increase the productivity and motivate them.

 

Similarly there are other principles that need to be followed like, prioritizing your needs, strong leadership, risk mitigation, extensive and effective communication, and exciting user experience. Apart from these it is also important that you need to be very careful while choosing your first project for implementing information systems.