INFORMATION SYSTEM AND PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT LIFE CYCLE

NTRODUCTION In today’s technologically challenged competitive environment an effective information system is critical to the success of a business. The performance of such information system is vital to its success. The performance of an implemented information system is many times the single most important aspect of an information system for a business. However, the measurement of an information systems’ performance is elusive and is sometimes overlooked during the actual system development cycle. SDLC has following phases – planning, analysis, design, implementation, support and maintenance. 1 The measurement of the systems’ performance is restricted to the implementation phase of the traditional system development life cycle (SDLC). The measurement tools are designed to measure the performance of applications or the subsystems only. These tools are thus burdened with the task of evaluating the entire systems’ performance for which they are not equipped. To make matters worse the rigidity of the process does not allow the systems programmer/analyst to easily incorporate the changes suggested by the outcome of performance measurement. The problem is that the cost to incorporate changes suggested by the outcomes of the performance measurements increases as the SDLC advances. This is because the stages of SDLC will have to be repeated to implement the desired changes. Boehm (1981) supports the contention of adverse financial implications of such changes at later stages in the SDLC. We examine SDLC and focus on its performance measurement phase. The paper evaluates various performance measurement tools and their role in the implementation phase of the SDLC. We recognize the importance of performance of the information system and suggest a performance cycle parallel to the SDLC starting with the planning phase. Specifically, the paper suggests the