Casey's Collections: A Strategic Decision-Making Case Using the Systems Development Lifecycle—Planning and Analysis Phases

Abstract

The Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) model, developed in the 1980s, remains the foundational model for strategic decision making regarding the development or acquisition of new information systems (IS). The SDLC model proposes five system development phases—planning, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance—using a waterfall theory. These early phases of the SDLC require strategic decisions to be made regarding information systems. Strategic decision making is a model of multi-attribute utility theory, which helps promote decisions that maximize utility among multiple alternatives. This case provides students with experience in making reasoned strategic IT decisions by executing the planning and analysis phases in a new system acquisition life cycle. This educational case is structured to be the first of several cases covering the SDLC involving the same small fictitious public corporation, Casey's Collections. Upon completion of the case, students should have a deeper understanding and appreciation for the process of IS strategic decision making. In addition, students should better understand how to identify an information system's needs and prepare system proposals based on the generation and analysis of alternative solutions. This case is suitable for students in an introductory or graduate accounting systems course; it is also appropriate for use in a IS course on systems analysis and design.

Decision-Making and Negotiation in Innovation & Research in Information Science

“…The key argument is that the essence and success of the company is directly influenced by such decisions, and consequently by the type of information systems that support those decisions (Church et al 2016). Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963) emphasize the difficulty of organizational decision-making processes and clarify that the integration of parts of the knowledge is a rather complicated process and thus constrained by the ability to understand the relationship between all parts.…”

“…The main methodologies that can improve decision-making processes are decision trees, which are traversed and evaluated via user-defined objective functions. The real-time information, required for monitoring the system status and for generating valid alternatives, is obtained through integration with information systems (Church et al 2016;Sabherwal and King 1995).…”

“…In this context, the strategic potential of information systems is well recognized for practitioners and academics for supporting decision-making processes-Define the problem; Identify conditioning factors; Develop potential alternatives; Analyse the alternatives; Select the best alternative; Implement the decision; Establish a control and evaluation system. Decision Support Systems (Church et al 2016;Huber 1981) are designed to use rational models for better decision-making processes (Song et al 2017). A key issue is the access to current, comprehensive, and reliable information for informed decision-making in integrated management processes (Cappel and Windsor 2000).…”

Expert systems supporting strategic decisions

“…Numerous authors have investigated decision‐making processes; according to Dhami et al (2015) and Curseu and Schruijer (2012), it can be thought of as a conceptual process by which individuals choose from a range of choices. However, the integration with expert systems allows for the acquisition of real‐time information that is necessary for tracking system status and for developing feasible alternatives (Church et al, 2016; Sabherwal & King, 1995).…”

Rekontruksi Konstruk Faktor Sosial Budaya Dalam Konteks Budaya Tri Hita Karana Pada Model UTAUT

“…Beberapa penelitian telah menunjukkan bahwa budaya organisasi merupakan salah satu faktor yang dapat meningkatkan kinerja organisasi (Gupta, 2011;Schermann, Wiesche, & Krcmar, 2012;Surya, Thoyib, Fatchan, & Rahayu, 2014;Sudana, 2016). Budaya organisasi juga merupakan salah satu faktor yang memengaruhi implementasi teknologi informasi (Ariyanto, Subroto, Purnomosidhi, & Rosidi, 2014;Church, Schmidt, & Smedley, 2016;Palanisamy, 2008). Janvrin, Lee, & Peters (2015) memandang budaya organisasi adalah motor penggerak untuk meningkatkan motivasi dan komitmen yang sesungguhnya.…”