Information needs for organizational activities

Software	None
Covers	Requirements analysis, business process analysis, data analytics, decison support
Skills Required	Interest in business applications of computers, informmation management. Good access to or understanding of a particular organization.
Challenge	Conceptual ??? Technical ?? Programming

Brief Description

The aim of this project is to develop a detailed analysis of the information management and information supply needs of a small or medium sized business, or a medium-sized public sector organization. What information management activities are involved in running the business? Are the current procedures effective and efficient? Could they be improved, by being more flexible, or more highly structured, or just different? In order to be a worthwhile project, this analysis would need to be far richer and more detailed and more sophisticated than the analyis we expect to see as foundations for projects building prototype information management systems.

This project involves understanding what information the organization collects and uses, and how this information is handled and communicated within the organization. This includes whether it is processed through formal procedures or informally, on paper or through computer systems. It also includes how it is represented computationally and depicted graphically or in words, and whether these representations are fit for purpose.

What decisions do decision-makers within the organization make, and what information do they draw on? How do they access that information? What other information would be valuable, and can it be obtained or calculated cost-effectively and presented in a way that makes it usable? Are the decision-makers bound by procedures, either official or habitual, and are they the right procedures for making good choices?

How does the transfer of tasks between people within the organization work? What information do people need to communicate in order to share work or to divide responsibilities between different employees with different roles?

Is the organization making use of appropriate and effective software tools? Are there other software tools that would aid the organization's work enough to justify the cost of acquiring them and the effort of introducing them and using them? Is there a business case for developing a customized software system, or are good systems available off the shelf?

The success of this project will depend entirely on being able to investigate in detail what is really going on in an organization, and what it needs.

Variants

This could be treated and structured as a consultancy project. Ideally it would have a real-life client.

This could focus on understanding the information needs and information management involved in the workflows for the organization's routine operations, and how this needs to be structured, as well as what planned procedures are needed and to what extent there needs to be flexibility for unusual cases.

The project could focus on the issues involved in ethical handling of potentially confidential information, both in terms of security and in terms of ethically appropriate use.

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