1 There is an anecdote told about the way Napoleon decided when a decision was required of him. According to the story, he never opened his mail until at least 2 weeks after he received it. By that time, all the petty problems had been solved without his help and he was able to devote his time to solving the truly serious problems which still remained. Napoleon’s procedure would of course be totally impractical for systems analysts, but the story does illustrate one very important point:
Before you, as an analyst, devote your time and effort to finding the solution to a problem, make sure you have analyzed the information and identified the real problem. After reading the assigned RWO project, are there any decisions you need more information about before you perform your analysis? What decision making processes or critical thinking skills will you use to identify the organization’s real problems?
2 One of the main reasons for poor analysis and decision making is that few individuals get off on the right foot when they try to identify and solve a problem. Frequently, they start to look for a solution as soon as the problem is raised — often before they are really sure what the problem is. This procedure will lead them to answer the wrong question. Thus, you can see that the most important factor in systems analysis decision making is defining the problem and pinpointing its critical factors. Create a checklist of seven or eight key points to help you discover the real problem at RWO. How will each point ensure your success in gathering meaningful and useful information?
