ENABLING THE COLLECTIVE BRAIN FOR ORGANIZATIONS: A QUICKSTART IN MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE SKILLS Fons Wijnhoven i Source of image on frontpage: http://io9.com/5962914/the‐emerging‐science‐of‐collective‐ intelligence‐‐and‐the‐rise‐of‐the‐global‐brain ii Enabling the collective brain for organizations: A quickstart in management software skills First edition Fons Wijnhoven Enschede, Netherlands, September, 2013 iii First edition published Enschede, September 2013 as PDF for International Business Adminunistration Program Published as digital book by University of Twente, Faculty Management and Governance, Department of Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems. Distributed by doc.utwente.nl. You are allowed to copy this book on your personal storage media and to make print outs for personal use. You have not the right to distribute or sell copies of the book without permission of the author. Reuse in non-profit educational programs is free. © 2013 by Fons Wijnhoven and the University of Twente. Creative Common Property rights are applicable of the following license types: Attribution (by) Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these. Noncommercial Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make (nc) derivative works based on it only for non-commercial purposes For other purposes please contact the author at [email protected] For permissions contact [email protected] For this text all attempts have been made to respect the property rights of other authors. iv Contents Foreword and acknowledgements ...................................................... viii 1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 2. Empiricism, data management and databases .................................. 9 2.1 Locke and databases ......................................................................... 9 2.2 Goal of this chapter ........................................................................ 12 2.3 Making a UoD using MS Visio ...................................................... 13 2.4 Universe of Discourse Description (UoDD) .................................. 15 2.5 Implementing the database design in MS Access .......................... 17 2.7 Making an MS-Access query and report ........................................ 28 2.8 Further study .................................................................................. 33 2.9 Exercises ........................................................................................ 33 3. Rationalism and spreadsheets for decision support .......................... 35 3.1 Leibniz and spreadsheets ................................................................ 35 3.2 Goal of this chapter ........................................................................ 37 3.3 Elements of spreadsheets ............................................................... 37 3.4 Producing descriptive statistics and data views. ............................ 50 3.5 Causal models and MS Excel ......................................................... 61 3.6 Causal models and uncertainty ....................................................... 73 3.7 MS-Excel solver add-in, analysis pack, regression and macros ..... 84 3.8 Further spreadsheet study ............................................................... 95 3.9 Exercises ........................................................................................ 95 4. Analytic thinking and multi-perspective business modeling ........... 99 4.1 Kantian inquiring system and multi-perspective modeling ............ 99 4.2 Goal of this chapter ...................................................................... 100 4.3 More about MS-Visio and it’s organizational a priori’s .............. 101 4.4 Business process modeling using MS Visio. ............................... 105 4.5 Ontologies, the BPMN language .................................................. 116 4.6 A case of BPMN and application development ........................... 124 4.6.1 Informal description .............................................................. 124 v 4.6.2 The challenge ........................................................................ 125 4.6.3 Solution ................................................................................. 125 4.7 Further study ................................................................................ 132 4.8 Exercises ...................................................................................... 132 5. The Hegelian perspective and information triangulation ............. 135 5.1 Hegel and critical information analysis ........................................ 135 5.2 Goal of this chapter ...................................................................... 138 5.3 Internet information triangulation ................................................ 139 5.4 Systems information triangulation and assumption detection ...... 142 5.5 Triangulation by brand monitoring and opinion mining .............. 143 5.6 Further study ................................................................................ 148 5.7 Exercises ...................................................................................... 149 6. Pragmatism, social software and information services.................... 151 6.1 Pragmatism ................................................................................... 151 6.2 Social software ............................................................................. 152 6.3 Social listening .............................................................................. 157 6.3.1 Social media vision and objectives ..................................... 157 6.3.2. How to “Listen” ................................................................... 159 6.3.3. Communicate on Social Media ........................................... 161 6.3.4. Build an Audience and Following ...................................... 163 6.3.5. Develop a Social Media Policy ........................................... 164 6.4 Assignment ................................................................................... 165 6.5 Further reading ............................................................................. 165 7. Organizing the collective brain ..................................................... 167 7.1 Organization and information ...................................................... 167 7.2 Goal of this chapter ...................................................................... 167 7.3 IT strategy and IT-organization alignment ................................... 168 7.4 IT Architectures ........................................................................... 170 7.5 IT project portfolio management .................................................. 174 7.6 Further study ................................................................................ 176 vi 7.7 Exercises ...................................................................................... 176 References ......................................................................................... 179 vii Foreword and acknowledgements In 2009, I completed an introduction to information management from the perspective of management studies and social sciences (Wijnhoven, 2009a). Thus the book was intended not to be technical. The focus was on information as a human and social asset used for communication, decision making and management. This required an analysis of the variety of the concept of information as a human and social phenomenon. Happily enough, an extensive amount of literature rooted in the philosophy of knowing exists, well summarized and introduced by C.W. Churchman (Churchman, 1971) and his students Mason and Mitroff (Mason & Mitroff, 1973), not for the purpose of analysis and philosophy per se but for practical purposes. Regarding the practical use, because of the extensive options that information technology offers us nowadays, the mentioned classical works are deficient, and so I wrote a book that linked fundamental thinking to modern technologies. Unfortunately, my assumption that students will easily recognize the practical implications and use technologies via publicly available free tutorials showed to be not correct and therefore I started writing this book with the help of many students and colleagues. I am especially grateful to Matthieu van der Heijden, who commented on Chapter 3 and provided extensive useful material, and Maria Iacob, who delivered many insight regarding BPMN, Bizagi and an instructive case for chapter 4. Many students have used previous versions of this book in the last two years, and commented on it. Especially I want to mention students Loes Brilman, Marten ten Kleij, Ellen Tolsma, Wendy Veldhuis, Martijn van der Wal, Anne Rietberg and Elise Eshuis for this. Joris Sibenius Trip and Hardwin Spenkelink delivered a very major re-write of a previous draft version of this book. Thanks to all colleagues and students who helped by their feedback. The sole responsibility for this text however is with the author. viii 1. Introduction Information consists of diverse representations of reality. These representations may be data, models, pictures and text. The realities that are represented may be about physical objects and events, but they also may be about more difficult to grasp feelings, opinions,