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A Systems Approach to the Design of a Management Information System for a Growing IT Service Company

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A Systems Approach to the Design of a Management Information System for a Growing IT Service Company A Systems Approach to the design of a Management Information System for a growing IT service company Student: Wouter van den Berg Student number: s0171875 Company name: Ymor Company supervisor: Bas Jorritsma (Delivery Manager) Date: Februari 16th, 2015 UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE. i Abstract The managers of the Delivery department at Ymor desire a new management information system (MIS) that will provide them with information on their department’s level of performance. The goal of this research project was to design such a system. I have developed and used a new MIS design method that is based on Mason and Mitroff’s work (1973) where they define the five key variables of any MIS. For one of these key variables, namely the organizational context of the MIS, I have used a different model than Mason and Mitroff: the Viable System model (VSM) by Stafford Beer. The purpose of my method is to help the designer determine the most appropriate value of those five variables in such a way that they form a coherent whole. In this case, it turned out to be necessary to first define ‘performance’ for the Delivery department to bring more structure to the information needs of the managers. It is hoped that my MIS design method increases our understanding of the processes and goals of MIS design projects, especially in small to medium enterprises. Key words: MIS design, inquiring systems, systems theory ii Preface I have carried out this research project in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Industrial Engineering and Management at the University of Twente. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people who helped me along the way. I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to the two Delivery Managers at Ymor, Bas Jorritsma and Stephan Badal. They showed a lot of interest in the project and were always willing to assist me with any issues that I encountered. I am especially thankful for the weekly meetings with Bas Jorritsma. I have learned a lot about the management profession during my time at Ymor because of him. My second word of thanks goes to my supervisors at the University of Twente, Dr. Fons Wijnhoven and Dr. Hans Heerkens. My meetings with them were approximately once a month and I feel that their support was vital to my progress. They have shown patience during the many times that I felt lost and gave me the advice I needed to find my way again. Because of Fons’ enthusiasm and knowledge of the field, I never left a meeting without new ideas to explore. Perhaps I have even spent a little too much time thinking divergently, but I was lucky to have Hans as my second supervisor who kept asking the right questions to bring my attention back to the matters at hand. I am also grateful for the other people at Ymor who spent time with me and assisted me during my months at the office. They are too many to mention here, which only proves that the willingness to help is indeed one of Ymor’s core values. Finally, I want to express my love and thanks to everyone at home for their support. iii Table of contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................ ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................................ iii List of figures ................................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 1.1. Background.................................................................................................................................................. 4 1.2. The problem situation ................................................................................................................................. 5 1.2.1. Under-capacity of the Delivery department (yellow) .......................................................................... 7 1.2.2. Organizational design of Ymor as a whole (purple) ............................................................................. 7 1.2.3. Management control of the Delivery department (green) .................................................................. 7 1.3. Choosing the core problem ......................................................................................................................... 8 1.4. Assumptions about the solution ................................................................................................................. 8 1.5. Goal and research methodology ............................................................................................................... 10 1.6. Research questions ................................................................................................................................... 10 1.7. Structure of this report ............................................................................................................................. 10 2. Theoretical framework .......................................................................................................................... 12 2.1. Five key variables of MIS ........................................................................................................................... 12 2.1.1. Psychological types ............................................................................................................................ 13 2.1.2. Methods of evidence generation ....................................................................................................... 13 2.1.3. Organizational contexts ..................................................................................................................... 15 2.1.4. Classes of problems ........................................................................................................................... 16 2.1.5. Modes of presentation ...................................................................................................................... 16 2.1.6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 16 2.2. Viable System Model (VSM) ...................................................................................................................... 17 2.3. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model............................................................................................................... 19 2.3.1. Alternatives and filter criteria ............................................................................................................ 20 2.3.2. Description of three performance models ........................................................................................ 21 2.3.3. Comparison and choice ...................................................................................................................... 24 2.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 25 3. Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 27 3.1. Method ...................................................................................................................................................... 27 3.2. Analysis phase 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 29 3.2.1. Step 1 –the psychological type of the users ...................................................................................... 29 3.2.2. Step 2 – the mode of presentation .................................................................................................... 30 3.2.3. Step 3 – the evidence generation method......................................................................................... 30 3.2.4. Step 4 – the organizational context ................................................................................................... 31 3.2.5. Step 5 – the class of problems ........................................................................................................... 40 3.2.6. Summary of results ............................................................................................................................ 41 3.3. Analysis phase 2 ........................................................................................................................................ 42 3.3.1. Methods for the BSC model ............................................................................................................... 42 3.3.2. Applying the BSC model ..................................................................................................................... 49 3.3.3. A review of the performance variables .............................................................................................. 55 3.3.4. Identification of relevant competencies ............................................................................................ 56 3.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................
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