Managing Computers in Large Organizations

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Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. MANAGING UNCONTROLLABLE GROWTH 51 to develop many of our own tools. Cost-benefit analysis as a management tool is virtually useless. • Are we willing to stay a step behind the leading edge? If so, we are less likely to achieve a competitive advantage. However, the cost is less and so is the risk. Most applications can be economically justified. But some decisions will still have to be justified on strategic grounds. • Do we want to stay well back from the leading edge, implementing only proven and therefore cost-effective systems changes? If so, we will have minimum cost and minimum risk of failure. We are, however, at maximum risk of finding ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. I cannot recommend which path to take. Each company must make its own choice, and it should choose a path consistent with its management approach in other areas. But most importantly, it should not pick a path by default and it should not let its technicians do the choosing. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Managing Microcomputers in Large Organizations http://www.nap.edu/catalog/167.html About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. MANAGED INNOVATION CONTROLLING END-USER COMPUTING IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT Managed Innovation Controlling End-User Computing in the Federal Government Ray Kline* In 1982 the General Services Administration (GSA), responding to the long-awaited microcomputer revolution, convened a small group of knowledgeable people in government to help determine what the federal government's policies should be in this emerging area. The group met every two or three weeks to look at various aspects of the problem and to see what might be done. The quandary it faced was change versus control—the government's need to be responsive to technological change and the need to maintain management control. In the area of computer technology, of course, change is essential and inevitable. Decades ago the federal government was in the vanguard of automated data processing and related technologies. Today it lags behind. Studies during the Ford administration (1974–1976) placed government about 10 years behind the private sector. By 1983 the Grace Commission reported that the gap was only 6.7 years. It is possible that by 1990 we will have caught up with or even surpassed the private sector. However, the driving force to initiate change is not merely to keep up with the private sector but to improve the efficiency of government and to increase the productivity of the federal worker. President Reagan has impressed upon his entire cabinet the need to cut government * Ray Kline is acting administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration. 52 Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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