Systems Analysis and Design

5th Edition

Chapter 13. Transition to the New System

Alan Dennis, Barbara Haley Wixom, and Roberta Roth

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-0

 Chapter 13 Outline

Making the transition to the new

system.
The migration plan.
Postimplementation Activities.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-1

 INTRODUCTION
 Managing the change to a new system is one
of the most difficult tasks in any organization.
 There are business issues, technical issues,
and people issues that must be addressed for
the transition from the as-is system to the to-
be system.
 Important support and follow-up activities
should be performed following the installation
of the new system.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-2
 Making the Transition to the New
System
 The existing systems or work processes often
limit people’s activities and make it difficult for
them to change.
 Change is a three-step process:
– Unfreeze the existing habits and norms;
– Move, or transition, from the old system to the
new;
– Refreeze the new system as the habitual way
of performing the work processes.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-3
(cont’d)
Implementing change

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-4

 The Migration Plan
 The decisions, plans, and procedures that will
guide the transition are outlined in the
migration plan.
 It specifies what activities will be performed
when and by whom as the transition is made.
 The migration plan includes business
contingency plans to ensure that the business
can continue its operations even in the event
of technical glitches in the new system.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-5
(cont’d)
Elements of a migration plan

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-6

Selecting the Conversion Strategy
 The process by which the new system is
introduced into the organization is called the
conversion strategy.
 Three different aspects of introducing the system:
- conversion style – how abruptly the change is
made;
- conversion locations – the organizational span of
the introduction;
- conversion modules – the extent of the system
that is introduced.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-7
(cont’d)
Conversion strategies

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-8

 Conversion Style
 Direct conversion
– The new system instantly replaces the old
one.
 Parallel conversion
– Both the old and new systems are used
simultaneously for a period of time. The
old system is discontinued when the new
system is proven fully capable.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-9

 Conversion Location
 Pilot conversion
– It selects one or more locations to be converted first
as a part of a pilot test. If the pilot test is successful,
then the system is installed at the remaining
locations.
 Phased conversion
– A first set of locations is converted, then a second
set, then a third set, and so on, until all locations are
converted.
 Simultaneous conversion
– All locations are converted at the same time.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-10
 Conversion Modules
 Modular conversion
–The old system is converted to the new
system one module at a time.
 Whole-system conversion
–The entire new system is installed at
one time.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-11

Evaluating the Strategy Choices

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-12

(cont’d)
 There are three important factors to consider in
selecting a conversion strategy
- Risk: The introduction of the new system exposes
the organization to risk associated with problems
and errors that may impede business operations.
- Cost: The various conversion strategies have
different costs.
- Time: Time is needed to convert between the old
and new system.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-13
Preparing a Business Contingency Plan
 Keeping small technology glitches in the new
system from turning into major business
disasters is known as business contingency
plan.
 Choosing parallel conversion is one approach
to contingency planning.
 It is important to involve key business
managers and users in the plan development.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-14

 Preparing the Technology
 There are three major steps involved in
preparing the technical aspects of the new
system:
- install the hardware,
- install the software, and
- convert the data.
 Data conversion is usually the most technically
complicated step in the migration plan.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-15

Preparing People for the New System
 The process of helping people adjust to the new
system and its new work processes without undue
stress is called change management.
 There are three key roles in any major
organizational changes:
- The sponsor is the person who wants the change.
- The change agent is the person(s) leading the
change effort.
- The potential adopters are the people who actually
must change.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-16
(cont’d)
The change management plan has four
basic steps:
1. Revising management policies,
2. Assessing the costs and benefits
models of potential adopters,
3. Motivating adoption, and
4. Enabling people to adopt through
training.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-17
 Understanding Resistance to Change

 People resist change – even change for the

better – for very rational reasons.
 Every change has a set of costs and benefits
associated with it. If the benefits of
accepting the change outweigh the costs of
the change, then people change.
 What is good for the organization is not
necessarily good for the people who work
there.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-18
(cont’d) Costs and Benefits of Change

The costs and benefits of change

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-19

 Revising Management Policies
 Management policies provide goals, define how
work processes should be performed, and determine
how organizational members are rewarded.
 No computer system will be successfully adopted
unless management policies support its adoption.
 Three basic tools for structuring work processes:
– Standard operating procedures (SOPs);
– Measurements and rewards;
– Resource allocation.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-20
 Assessing Costs and Benefits
 This step in developing a change management
plan is to develop two clear and concise lists of
costs and benefits provided by the new system,
compared with the as-is system.
 The first list is developed from the perspective
of the organization.
 The second list is developed from the
viewpoints of the different potential adopters,
or stakeholders in the change.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-21

(cont’d)
Major factors in successful change

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-22

 Motivating Adoption
 The simple and most important factor in motivating a
change is providing clear and convincing evidence of
the need for change.
 There are two basic strategies to motivating
adoption:
- An informational strategy is to convince potential
adopters that change is for the better.
- A political strategy is to use organizational power to
motivate change.
 Potential adopters include ready adopters, reluctant
adopters, and resistant adopters.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-23
 Enabling Adoption: Training
Potential adopters may want to adopt
the change, but unless they are capable
of adopting it, they won’t.
Every new system requires new skills.
There are three ways to get these new
skills: hiring new employees,
outsourcing, and training existing staff.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-24

 What to Train
 Training should focus on helping the users
accomplish their jobs, not how to use the
system.
- The training must focus on those activities
around the system as well as the system itself.
- The training should focus on what the user
needs to do, not on what the system can do.
 One source of guidance for designing training
materials is the use cases and use scenarios.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-25

 How to Train
There are many ways to deliver
training:
- classroom training,
- one-on-one training,
- computer-based training.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-26

 POSTIMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES

The goal of postimplementation

activities is to institutionalize the use of
the new system.
Three key postimplementation
activities:
- support,
- maintenance, and
- project assessment.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-27
 System Support
 Once the new system has been installed, the
system is officially turned over to the
operations group.
 Providing system support means helping the
users to use the system. This type of support
can be thought of as on-demand training.
 Online support is the most common form of on-
demand training.
 A help desk provides a place for a user to talk
with a person who can answer questions.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-28
(cont’d)
 The goal of most help desks is to have the level 1
support staff resolve 80% of the help requests. If the
issue cannot be resolved by level 1 support staff, a
problem report is completed and passed to a level 2
support staff member.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-29

 System Maintenance
 System maintenance is the process of refining the
system to make sure it continues to meet business
needs.
 Change requests typically come from five sources:
- The most common source is problem reports from
the operations group.
- Second: Enhancements to the system from users.
- Third: Other system develop project.
- Fourth: Underlying software or networks change.
- Fifth: Requests from senior management.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-30

(cont’d)
Processing a change request

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-31

 Project Assessment
The goal of project assessment is to
understand what was successful about
the system and the project activities,
and what needs to be improved.
Project assessment is important
component in organizational learning.
It is particularly important for junior
staff members.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-32
 Project Team Review
 Project team review focuses on the way the
project team carried out its activities.
 Each member prepares a short document that
reports on and analyzes his/her performance.
 The focus is on improvement, not penalties.
 A summary document is prepared by the
project manager and is circulated to help the
organization learn more from the project.

© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-33

 System Review
The focus of the system review is
understanding the extent to which
the proposed costs and benefits were
actually recognized from the
implemented system.
System review helps the organization
improve in future projects.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-34
 SUMMARY
 Making the transition to new system
- is the technical process of replacing the old system
with the new one. Designers select the method,
timing, and location of the conversion process.
 The migration plan
- is aimed at helping system users to adopt the new
system and use it productively.
 Postimplementation activities
- provide on-going support to users, include training
people to use the system and provide participants in
the development process the opportunity to learn
and grow from their experiences.
© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-35
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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© Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 13-36