The Sad State of Information Systems
Before jumping to solutions, it is essential to share a thorough diagnostic of a situation. In the case of information systems and, more generally, computer use, any user knows of the term “bug” and has experienced the frustration associated with malfunction, sometimes with a high personal impact (loss of personal data, consequences regarding revenue, and so on). For companies, a malfunction in IT can have harsh consequences since they depend more and more on computers to realize their business operations, hence their financial objectives.
After defining what an information system is and explaining how its efficiency (or lack thereof) can be calculated, an attempt at classifying the causes of such problems will be exposed. As for solutions, this will be the subject of the rest of this book. But for now, we must understand what is going wrong with information systems, how this happens, and – more importantly – why.
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