Monte

I’m taking a class this semester called Introduction to Business Information Systems which is basically a primer for learning to use Microsoft Office and understand a broad range of communication technologies. I can’t imagine anybody choosing Business Information Systems as their major and actually being excited about it. It’s like a business degree; it’s general and important enough to where anybody could use it, but there are few people who are genuinely interested in it.

There’s a chapter in the class textbook which discusses the Systems Development Life Cycle, which is basically a foo-foo term for “the steps to creating a program.” Why they use such nebulous language is beyond me. It reminds me of the homemakers who call themselves domestic engineers. Anyway, the basic life cycle steps are: (1) Investigation, (2) Analysis, (3) Design, (4) Implementation, and (5) Maintenance and Review. The textbook describes each step in great detail, and the chapter is filled with the typical, business-themed stock photography: the man on the cellphone looking up towards the towering skyscrapers beside him; the female receptionist smiling at her desk wearing a head set; and the male executive staring at an obsolete computer looking confident and determined. The whole chapter is much too picturesque, and it got me wondering: How many tech companies actually follow this so-called Systems Development Life Cycle?

I know my company sure as hell doesn’t. We prefer the “Fly-by the-Seat-of-Our-Pants Cycle.” No planning, no analysis, no designing, and no review. Or at least that’s how it seems from my perspective. For the past several months, we’ve been working on a Web application for a company which resells energy (basically they run a quasi-legal pyramid scheme). I’ve sat in on several meetings with their IT guy, and from what I can tell, the project is completely discombobulated. There’s no planning, no timelines, no long-term strategies, very little consultation, and no analysis whatsoever. By the time the meeting’s over, the project has usually succumb to scope creep, and nobody knows what the next step is. That’s the Fly-by the-Seat-of-Our-Pants Cycle.

I’m starting to realize, however, that this dysfunctional form of project management doesn’t just pertain to my company. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that only 20 percent of Internet technology companies actually have some kind of organized development process in place. The hypothesis occurred to me when I first began using my school’s online registration system. It’s called MyMav, and it was developed by a company called PeopleSoft (now Oracle). Let me just digress for a moment and say that I’m thoroughly fed up with all of these Web apps which use the prefix “My” in their names. Microsoft started it when they began adding the prefix throughout the Windows shell: My Computer, My Documents, My Pictures, My Movies, etc. I have the same hatred for companies who follow Apple by adding the “i” in front of their product names. The “i” was first introduced with the original iMac, and it stood for “Internet”. Now every company under the damn sun uses an “i” in their product’s name.

Anyway, this new MyMav system is supposed to help students register for classes, make account payments, check their email, manage financial aid, and check grades. Ideally, such a system could be extremely beneficial. Unfortunately, it’s been nothing but trouble for both students and staff. MyMav is about as well-designed and easy to use as MySpace. The damn site uses iframes for God’s sake. You would think that a Web system so crucial for a state college would have been properly planned and designed, but no. I think the Fly-by the-Seat-of-Our-Pants Cycle is used in more places than we realize.

Happy Thanksgiving.