問22
頻出度★☆☆
情報システム戦略の立案において, 情報システム全体の最適化の方針や目標を設定する際に実施すべきことはどれか。
平成24年度 春期 ITパスポート試験 問22
ストラテジ系システム戦略 › 情報システム戦略
This question's explanation and your answers so far.
解説
問 22
Incorrectア
Clarifying the skills of the personnel needed for development is an activity carried out after an individual development project has taken concrete shape, when the systemization plan is drawn up or the project is launched. Only once it is decided which system will be built, by when, and with what organization can you identify the technical areas and headcount required, the personnel that can be secured in-house, and the parts that must rely on outsourcing. In other words, this is a matter of project resource planning and human resource management. At the stage of setting the policy and goals for the direction in which the company-wide information system should be optimized, the individual system concerned has not yet been identified, so this cannot be done. Because its granularity stays at the execution structure of an individual project rather than at company-wide strategy, it does not fit the situation the question asks about.
- イ
正解 The correct answer is イ, “Consider consistency with the business (management) strategy.” An information systems strategy (IT strategy) is a company-wide picture of how a company will use information systems in order to realize its business strategy; it is not an end in itself, but always a means of realizing the business strategy. Therefore, at the most upstream point of setting the policy and goals for optimizing the entire information system (overall optimization), the first thing to check is whether those policies and goals match the direction in which the business strategy is heading. For example, if the business strategy is “to differentiate through make-to-order production with short lead times,” the overall policy for the information system will move toward connecting the data from order receipt to production and shipment into a single flow across departments; and if the business strategy is “to accelerate overseas expansion,” the policy will be to support multiple languages, multiple currencies, and the legal systems of each country, and to build a shared group-wide platform. If the business strategy differs, the shape of overall optimization also changes, so the policy cannot be decided from the convenience of the information system alone, separated from the business strategy. Overall optimization also means eliminating a mere patchwork of local optimizations made by individual departments. If each department builds a system that is convenient only for itself, harmful effects appear: siloed systems, the same data held in duplicate, duplicated investment, and an inability to link departments together. To prevent this, the priorities of which business areas the company invests in, in what order, and how much, are decided with the business strategy as a common yardstick. The representative method for describing this overall optimization systematically is EA (Enterprise Architecture), listed in the glossary: starting from the business architecture (how business operations should be), it describes the current state (As-Is) and the ideal state (To-Be) in the order of data architecture, application architecture, and technology architecture, and connects them to a migration plan. The business architecture that is its starting point is derived from the business strategy itself. Ensuring this kind of consistency is also the role of the CIO (Chief Information Officer). Therefore, what should be carried out when setting the policy and goals is イ, considering consistency with the business strategy.
Incorrectウ
Risk analysis that accompanies the introduction of an information system is an activity carried out after the target system to be introduced has been concretely decided, within the systemization plan, the rollout plan, or project risk management. Unless it is decided which product will be introduced, to what scope, and by what method, it is impossible even to identify and evaluate risks such as delays in going live, failure of data migration, impact on existing operations, and information leakage. In terms of order, the policy and goals for overall optimization that are consistent with the business strategy come first, individual systemization projects then take concrete shape along those lines, and risks are analyzed for those projects. It cannot serve as the basis for deciding the policy and goals themselves, and it is an activity further downstream than the situation the question asks about.
Incorrectエ
Verifying the fit between user needs and a software package is an activity performed at the stage of choosing the means of implementation, that is, from requirements definition through procurement (selecting the software package); fit & gap analysis, which identifies the differences between business requirements and package functions, belongs here. What is handled here is the implementation policy for an individual system — whether, for a particular business operation, to use a ready-made package as it is, to customize it, or to develop a custom system — not the company-wide policy for how to optimize the entire information system. Starting from the fit of an individual package while the policy and goals for overall optimization are not yet decided would result in exactly that piling up of local optimizations. It therefore is not something that should be carried out in the situation the question describes.
ここがポイント
- An information systems strategy is subordinate to the business strategy — IT is a means of realizing the business strategy, so the policy and goals for optimizing the entire information system (overall optimization) are set with consistency with the business strategy as the top-level criterion. Local optimization by individual departments invites silos, duplicated data, and duplicated investment, so investment priorities are decided with a yardstick shared by the whole company (the business strategy). The one who ensures this consistency is the CIO, and the method for describing overall optimization systematically is EA (Enterprise Architecture).
- Separate the choices by the granularity of the process stage — keep this order in mind: formulating the information systems strategy (company-wide policy and goals) → planning (system concept and systemization plan) → requirements definition → procurement and development → operation. Clarifying personnel skills, analyzing introduction risks, and checking package fit are all downstream activities that can be done only after an individual system has taken concrete shape, so none of them is the answer for the situation of deciding company-wide policy.
用語