TECHNICAL JOURNAL Volume 5 Issue 2 November 1986 Published by INTERNATIONAL COMPUTERS LIMITED at OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS TPCHNINflli d The ICL Technical Journal is published twice a year by International Computers Limited at Oxford University JOURffll Press. Editor J. Howlett ICL House, Putney, London SW15 1SW, UK Editorial Board J. Howlett (Editor) R.V. Latin H.M. Cropper (F International) (Standard Telephones Laboratories) D.W. Davies K.H. Macdonald G.E. Felton M.R. Miller M.D. Godfrey (British Telecom Research F.F. Land Laboratories) (London School of Economics & J.M. Pinkerton Political Science) E.C.P. Portman All correspondence and papers to be considered for publication should be addressed to the Editor. The views expressed in the papers are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent ICL policy. 1986 subscription rates: annual subscription £16 UK, £19 rest of world, Us $40 N. America; single issues £10 UK, £11 rest of world, US $25 N. America. Orders with remittances should be sent to the Journals Subscriptions Department, Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP, UK. This publication is copyright under the Berne Convention and the Interna­ tional Copyright Convention. All rights reserved. Apart from any copying under the UK Copyright Act 1956, part 1, section 7, whereby a single copy of an article may be supplied, under certain conditions, for the purposes of research or private study, by a library of a class prescribed by the UK Board of Trade Regulations (Statutory Instruments 1957, No. 868), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owners. Permission is, however, not required to copy abstracts of papers or articles on condition that a full reference to the source is shown. Multiple copying of the contents of the publication without permission is always illegal. ©1986 International Computers Limited Printed by H Charlesworth & Co Ltd, Huddersfield ISSN 0142-1557 iCL TECHNICAL JOURNAL C o n te n ts Volume 5 Issue 2 Foreword 167 The Management Into the 1990s Research Program MS. Scott Morton 169 Managing strategic ideas: the role of the computer C. Eden 173 A study of interactive computing at top management levels C.J. Martin 184 A management support environment N.C. Austin 196 Managing change and gaining corporate commitment P. Hall 213 An approach to information technology planning S.J. Pollard and C.R. Crawford 228 Preparing the organisation for IPSE P.W. Veasey and S.J. Pollard 253 Global Language for Distributed Data Integration P.M. Stocker 274 The design of distributed secure logical machines R.W. Jones 291 Mathematical logic in the large practical world E. Babb 309 The ICL DRS 300 management graphics system R.J. Bunyan 317 ICL Technical Journal November 1986 i Performance of OSLAN local area network A. Maynard-Smith 326 Experience with programming parallel signal-processing algorithms in Fortran 8X A. Wilson 344 Book review 351 Notes on the authors 353 ii ICL Technical Journal November 1986 Foreword This issue of the Technical Journal has a group of papers on a theme that may be expressed as ‘Information Technology as a tool of management’. The importance of management, especially of the large and complex organisa­ tions that characterise the modern industrial economy, is self evident and a glance at the business pages of any serious newspaper, any day, will provide plenty of evidence of the seriousness and difficulty of the problems it gives rise to. Management is largely about information, so Information Technol­ ogy should be pressed into service as an aid when and wherever that seems profitable. And as Information Technology increases its impact on all aspects of business and economic life, the understanding of the management impact becomes a critical factor in the effective use of information systems. The main issues are put by Professor Michael Scott Morton in his introductory paper. He is Director of the Management into the Nineties research program at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ICL is one of the sponsors of this program, the others being American Express Travel-Related Services Company Arthur Young & Company British Petroleum Company pic Bell South Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation Eastman Kodak Company General Motors Corporation MCI Communications Corporation United States Internal Revenue Service In ICL, understanding and mastering the managerial impact of technology alongside the understanding of the technology itself is a critical element of our forward business planning. Our chief reasons for participating in this program can be summarised as follows: 1 the issues addressed by the program are key factors that will affect the company itself as a business, and equally will affect its customers 2 the program will be a valuable source of information about critical issues facing management, both now and in the future; and of possible solutions that can be reflected in ICL’s products and services. ICL Technical Journal November 1986 167 We look forward to publishing papers dealing with results from the MIN program. The ‘Management’ papers are the first six following Professor Scott Morton’s introduction. The two from UK Business Schools (Eden at Bath, Martin at Durham) reflect our increasing interest in and involvement with academic institutions of this type. Those by Pollard & Crawford and Veasey & Pollard respectively arise from some recent thinkng in ICL’s Group Information Services Division, the Division which, as one of these papers states, is responsible for providing the company with the software services needed to run its own business. Veasey & Pollard deals with the particular problem of managing a large software project. Hall on Decision Conferencing describes a technique evolved in ICL for arriving at managerial decisions and gaining commitment to the decisions arrived at; and Austin discusses the problems and needs of the physical environment and describes ICL’s own solution, colloquially (but officially) known as the ‘pod’. Several of the other papers have managerial relevance. Bunyan’s is a short technical account of the facilities for graphical presentation and manipula­ tion of information provided by the recently-announced ICL DRS300 networked system. Distributed systems will certainly increase in importance as technical tools of management: Stocker discusses the language for addressing these and Jones the problems of control and security of informa­ tion handling in such systems, both papers making specific proposals. Babb’s paper arises from work he has been doing on the use of mathematical logic in business systems. The last paper in this issue is quite different - a review by Dr. Pinkerton of Professor Wilkes’s ‘Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer’. Maurice Wilkes, who built one of the world’s first true computers, the Cambridge EDSAC, was a founder member of the Editorial Board of this journal and gave invaluable help and advice in its setting up; it is very pleasing to have this opportunity to show our appreciation. J. Michael Watson ICL Director, Marketing and Technical Strategy. 168 ICL Technical Journal November 1986 The Management Into the 1990s Research Program Michael S. Scott Morton Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. The Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. has embarked on a unique research program to explore the impact of I.T. on organizations. This five year $5 million program involves a consortium of ten sponsors and an interdisciplinary set of 15 M.I.T. faculty. The goal of the program is to identify the nature of impacts that I.T. will have on organizations and the implications of these for the organization’s mission, structure, and manage­ ment practices. Program premises An important premise of the program is the fact that Information Technol­ ogy has moved out beyond mere mainframe computers. While progressive Data Processing departments have recognised that any computer depart­ ment must now include in its thinking, mainframes, mini-computers and micro-computers, there are still organizations who have failed to exploit these technologies for competitive advantage. This gap between changing computer technology and its lack of exploitation is further aggravated by the ongoing convergence between computers and telecommunications. The emerging network of differeing nodes of computer power and data bases in the hands of people with knowledge work to do is causing fundamental change in many leading organizations. I.T., then, in the context of the 1990s program, represents the full panoply of computers, communications, robotics, professional workstations and ‘chips’ used to create ‘intelligent’ products. All of this technological change would not justify M.I.T. and a disparate group of sponsors to explore its impact if it were not for the fact that we all view the world as being in a state of considerable turbulence and likely to remain so for some time to come. Thus, for example, we are in an era of increasing global competition that not only is creating new business oppor­ tunities, but is redefining traditional business relationships among customers and suppliers, managers and their workforce and governments and the private sector. The success of these new alliances will depend in large measure on the ability of people to adapt to change and to capitalize on often unexpected opportunities. ICL Technical Journal November 1986 169 The program’s view of the world, then, is one of considerable environmental turbulence to which the organization must adapt if it wishes to survive successfully over the decades ahead. I.T. provides the organization with one set of tools by which to adapt. While these tools have been available for some 25 years they have taken on a whole new shape by virtue of two factors. The first of these is the technology itself.