An introduction to information engineering: From strategic planning to information systems

Reviews relatively well understood and quantifiable. The book reports on a research project funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) which set out not to tackle these big questions directly, but rather to establish a detailed assessment framework as part of a longer-term effort to identify the overall socioeconomic impact of information programmes and services. Perhaps the single most remarkable thing about this book, and a great credit to its editor, is that much of it is the synthesis of an international computer conference held over a seven month period in 1992. Such are the complexities of the issues raised that the costs and time delays associated with conventional methods (ie preparing and reviewing papers and synthesizing and circulating summaries) would have been prohibitive, especially given the need to involve experts from the widest international community. Menou has succeeded in turning what must have been a fairly kaleidoscopic array of experiences, prejudices and insights into an extremely readable and fast-paced text. After a detailed assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the project's collective electronic brainstorming methodology, Menou provides a clear and balanced account of the whole notion of information-induced benefits and opens a discussion of the sorts of indicators and assessment methods that might be able to provide some effective leverage on the problem. This conceptualization provided a foundation which was further developed in a series of post-conference workshops. The book's most valuable contribution is a proposed framework for measuring the impact of information on development. Menou develops the idea of an input-output matrix linking input factors (such as human skills and a favourable policy environment) with output benefits which can be assessed in terms of their political, economic, social, cultural and technological impact. No definitive answers, then, but a very useful tool for further research and reflection. ~n Row~n~

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An Introduction to Information Engineering: From Strategic Planning to Information Systems C Finkelstein Addison-Wesley Sydney (1989) 393 pp ISBN 0 201 41654 9

Information Engineering: Systems Development

Strategic

C Finkelstein Addison-Wesley Sydney (1992) 660 pp ISBN 0 201 50988 1 The term 'information engineering' has achieved a rather high profile recently through its adoption by the European Commission to identify one of the sub-programmes within the Fourth Framework Programme. It is also a term that has been used fairly widely in the past to identify certain aspects of computing and appears to be closely synonymous with software engineering. Whether the various users of the term, including the author reviewed here, actually mean the same thing is rather unlikely and, like information management it seems likely that we are witnessing, yet again, the faddish adoption of a term which will mean whatever the user wants it to mean. The first book reviewed here includes a definition, which at least serves to let us know what the author intends to discuss, and which leaves us in no doubt at all that the focus is on the design of computer-based information systems, with particular reference to database design and development to satisfy an organization's strategic aims: This [ie information engineering] addresses strategic planning as well as analysis and design. It is mainly data driven, not procedure driven. Together with appropriate software, it provides expert support to users for development of application systems which support the strategic plan exactly. However, although the book's subtitle suggests that we might expect to move through it from the imperatives of organizational planning to the design of the requisite information systems ('from strategic planning to information systems'), the path we are actually

asked to take. To begin with, in Part 1, we have two chapters on the nature of information engineering and its history, which focus largely on the problems of information system design and the steps taken to overcome them (through, for example, the development of CASE tools. Then, in part 2, which is headed 'Basic principles', we have seven chapters on data modelling and normalization, which suggests that what we have here is, in effect, a rewrite of the 'traditional' systems design literature under a new name. True, normalization is rewritten from a business systems perspective, which means relaxing the formality of the rules, but, nevertheless, the full panoply of first, second, etc, normal forms, and entities and activities, is all here. We finally get to strategic planning in Chapter 10, rather than in Chapter 1, but again the emphasis is on information systems projects, and we are presented with a rational planning perspective, rather than the idea of an 'emergent strategy' of the kind that Henry Mintzberg has advocated. The whole thrust, therefore, is based on the proposition that we can rationally plan the future and proceed to build information systems on the basis of those plans. The difficulties of this are recognized by Finkelstein, but his answer is more effective systems development using CASE products and 'automated information engineering' - - these ideas occupy the final five chapters of the book. The second book is an expansion of the first, with some repetition of the material (for example, in its account of data modelling, normalization, etc in Chapters 2-4), but with more attention being given to systems development and a detailed treatment of principles of screen design, particularly for SQL-related systems. The two books could be used together, the first providing an expression of the basic ideas, the second expanding them (although the treatment of normalization and data modelling is more comprehensive in the first than in the second). There are many useful ideas in the two volumes, and examples of, for example, questionnaires used to gain an understand-

International Journal olinformation Management 1995 Volume 15 Number I

Reviews ing of business needs and management information demands. Information engineering may well be what these books claim it to be and, if so, it seems to be something other than what the European Commission (and its advisers) mean by the term. If, however, you are in the systems design business, you will probably find Finkelstein's approach useful, since he does present a business perspective and his tools and techniques offer a variety of ways of understanding and reorganizing business processes.

Professor Tom Wilson Department of Information Studies University of Sheffield, UK Electronic Service Delivery: Themes and Issues in the Public Sector. A Forum Discussion W Dutton, J Taylor, C Bellamy, C Raab and M Peltu

P1CT Programme Office Brunel University Uxbridge (1994) 34 pp (Policy Research Paper No 28) £5.00 The Programme on Information and Communication Technologies (PICT) of the Economic and Social Research Council was set up by the Council to explore the long-term social and economic consequences of communication and information technologies and this research paper is the result of a Policy Research Forum held in early 1994. This report begins with the statement that: During the 1960s, the public sector led many private enterprises in the use of information technology for supporting basic administrative functions, including management information systems, payroll processing and budgeting and accounting applications. Since then, governments in all countries have generally fallen behind private industry, particularly in not employing information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide the public with more direct electronic access to information and services in ways that have become familiar in, for example, banking and airline industries. This appears to have been the starting

point of the debate among Forum members, whose discussion then focused on what drives innovation in the application to ICTs to electronic service delivery, on the barriers to innovation, on the successful management of ESD innovation, and on the role of ICTs in the democratic process. Most of the issues raised and much of the reported debate will be familiar to readers of HIM: the nature of the technology as a driver and the need for a supportive political climate; the barrier of departmental fiefdoms in government and the shortage of finance for innovation ventures at all levels of public service; the need to 'reengineer' government services to take maximum advantage of ICTs, and the need for effective partnerships and coalitions in innovative ventures; and crucial issues of the importation of service strategies into a different culture and of the role of ICTs in opening up political debate and decision making. All of these topics are likely to be of crucial significance to any Western democracy as we move (with increasing rapidity) towards the 21st century, but the really interesting part of the report is its sub-text. There is, throughout, evidence of a tension between the need to realize the social and economic benefits of ICTs, and to do so urgently and vigorously, and the absence of a supportive ideology in government. What emerges is a frustration on the part of the participants with government policies that equate innovation with business innovation, benefits with financial benefits (either in profits to companies or savings to the Treasury), market forces with commercial markets, and that define virtually all public expenditure as unproductive. This is, as I say, the sub-text, rather than a direct expression, but it is indicated, for example, by Professor Goddard's comment that 'The UK is not reinventing government but dismantling it', and by the key policy issue: 'Create the "business case" for ESD in ways that take account of public service factors as well as the financial criteria common in private sector cultures'. These tensions and frustrations will

International Journal of Information Management 1995 Volume 15 Number I

not go away, although, sadly, the number of people in public sector organizations who will be sufficiently motivated to try to innovate in the face of pressure on resources and lack of government interest is likely to decline even further. The sad fact is that, as the opening statement notes, the public sector in the UK has, in the past, been well in advance of the private sector in its application of what was, at the time, new technology. The statement refers to administrative uses of computing, but libraries, for example, were using bar codes to assist service delivery some 10 to 15 years before the retail sector, and in the field of community information, were making use of videotext in a number of experimental services in the 1970s and early 1980s. Again, public libraries were at the forefront of developing information services for local government departments and elected members - - the resultant databases could, by now, have been in electronic form, serving a wider range of users with minimum development costs, but virtually all of them have disappeared, victims of the financial pressures in local government, in spite of evaluations that demonstrated their value to, for example, planners and social workers. The Report identifies 10 ~key policy issues', one of which has been mentioned above, the remainder certainly ought to be taken up by government but, sadly, we are more likely to get more bland documents such as that which emerged recently from the CCTA, on opportunities for public sector use of 'information superhighways'.1 The most significant of these issues, to my mind, are the following:

Create a jbcal point fi~r debate and action. A coordinated effort is needed to raise awareness of the potential of ESD and to promote a widespread debate to assist policy formulation. This seems to me to be unarguable - without such a coordinated effort activity will remain diffuse and directed to widely differing aims. For example, SuperJANET is under the direction of the Higher Education

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