Computer Game Design
INTRODUCTION
The main concern of a User is to solve a problem, and the main concern of IT Management is Consistency and Manageability. IT activities (staff & business users) need to employ new technologies while simultaneously focusing on control and efficiency of the existing systems.
ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES IN CONTROL OF IT ACTIVITIES
Tensions guide policies are of two sets for developing, deploying, and managing IT systems. The first set is between Innovation and Control. The emphasis a firm should place on aggressive innovation depends on a broad assessment of the potential strategic impact of IT on a firm and on managements willingness to take risks.
The second set of tensions may develop between the IT staff and business users when a company selects its priorities and enlists resources to pursue its objectives.
Users are much inclined towards short-term need fulfillment at the cost of long-term IT architectural problems, orderly deployment and maintenance needs.
The Information Technology department is preoccupied with standardization of solutions, computer game design mastery of technology, maintenance difficulties and orderly deployment at the cost of slow or no response to legitimate business needs.
Both these tensions need to be balanced by considering factors like corporate culture; IT*s potential strategic impacts, and the urgency of short-term problems. In particular, when rapid innovation is required, managers must be sure that rigid policies do not interfere with experimentation and learning.
FOUR APPROACHES TO IT INNOVATION
Following are the four approaches to IT innovation:
* From Centralized, IT-Driven Innovation to Decentralized, User-Driven Innovation
* User-Driven Innovation over IT Department Protests
* From Decentralized, User-Driven Innovation to Centralized IT Management
* From Decentralized, User-Driven Innovation to Unexpected Centralized Innovation
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The four approaches to IT innovation illustrate the impossibility of foreseeing the full impact of new technology and the difficulty of allocation of control over priorities and resources involving systems development efforts.
Neither IT professionals nor business users have outstanding records in anticipating how new technologies will affect organizations. A general manager should facilitate the assimilation computer game design of new technology by continually monitoring tensions & shifting emphases as appropriate between centralized and decentralized IT and user control-driven innovation.
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DRIVERS TOWARD USER DOMINANCE
Critical drivers encourage users to exercise control over internal systems development resources and engage IT resources for business needs. These can be grouped into five categories:
* Pent-Up User Demand IT departments and suppliers often do not have staff and budget needed to handle the volume of IT activities and projects. Existing systems require sustained maintenance to accommodate changing regulatory and business requirements. Systems need to be adapted to major changes in IT architecture, such as the transition to enterprise and Internetworking systems.
* The Need for Staff Flexibility When an IT department and its vendors appear unresponsive to users demands, the users see developing systems as a non-confrontational way to get work done. They deploy their own staff in IT roles or engage services from outside application service companies to speed the process of meeting their requirements for IT functionality. It makes employee promotions that involve rotating IT staff to Non-IT jobs within the department easier, thus enhancing user-IT coordination.
* Growth in the IT Services Industry Thousands of commercial off-the-shelf software packages are now available for specific IT applications. These packages range from simple accounts payable products to complete enterprise systems products. These systems are marketed by hardware & software vendors to business managers, and their functional features are emphasized; vendor sales representatives soft-pedal incompatibilities with the firms existing infrastructure & software upgrade or maintenance problems.
* User*s Desire to control their Own Destiny Business users desire to regain control over a part of their business operations. They can exercise direct control over systems development priorities. By using either own staff or software and computer game design companies they select, users hope to obtain a system with vastly improved features in less time than it would take to navigate the priority-setting process in the corporate IT department. As business conditions change, users often wish to control systems maintenance priorities themselves and become unwilling to place their maintenance request in the queue with those of other business groups.
* Fit with the Organization -
DRIVERS TOWARD A CENTRALIZED IT STRUCTURE
Pressures that encourage firms to consolidate IT development resources into a centralized unit are:
Staff Professionalism
Standard Setting and Ensuring System Maintainability
Envisioning Possibilities and Determining Feasibility - How far is your horizon
Corporate Data Management myopic design, consistency. Data is a corporate asset.
Cost Estimation and Analysis realism, alignment with overall company plans and goals
COORDINATION AND LOCATION OF IT POLICY
The tension between IT staff and business users can be balanced by establishing clear policies that specify the user domain, the IT domain, and senior managements role.
IT Responsibilities
* Develop and manage the long-term architectural plan and ensure that new projects fit within the plan.
* Develop a process to establish, maintain, and evolve company standards (telecom protocols, client software, server devices, database management systems, programming languages, documentation, data definitions, storage redundancy, and information security).
* Establish procedures and consider outsourcing.
* Maintain an inventory of installed and planned systems.
* Identify career paths for IT staff. Establish internal marketing efforts and help users to understand the challenges of IT support and the hidden costs of maintaining IT systems.
* Include compatibility as a part of the RFP process.
* Identify and maintain relationships with preferred systems suppliers.
* Establish education programs for business users.
* Set up a process for an ongoing review of legacy systems.
User Responsibilities
* Educate yourself about IT activities, charge-back systems, challenges of IT, & activity-based overhead allocation system.
* Develop realistic estimates of the amount of user personnel investment required for new projects.
* Ensure comprehensive user inputs for all projects.
* Ensure positive user-IT interface.
* Periodically audit system reliability standards, service procedures and communications services performance.
* Participate in developing and maintaining IT plans.
General Management Support and Policy Overview
* Ensure an appropriate balance between IT and business users in order to prevent one group from dominating the other.
* Make sure the company has a comprehensive corporate IT strategy.
* Manage the inventory of HW/SW systems and services.
* Establish standards for acquisition, development and IT systems operation.
* Facilitate the transfer of technology from one unit to another.
* Actively encourages technical experimentation.
* Develop an appropriate planning and control system to link IT to a companys goals.
IT LEADERSHIP AND THE MANAGEMENT OF BUDGETS
Budgets are an important control mechanism. By adjusting the size of budgets and defining their range of acceptable use, companies can increase or decrease constituencies control over priorities and resources. Many firms allocate a certain portion of the IT budget to users while retaining another portion for the IT department. Many companies follow calls for deeply technical or infrastructure expenditures to be decided by the IT group, while IT expenditures remain under the control of business users. Senior managers control the portions of budgets under the control of IT and users and seek a balance of control.