Information Technology (IT)
Today's Information Technology (IT) and Management Information Systems (MIS) environments have to address the management of the entire organization's environment as a collection of interacting automated/manual information systems. These systems are so critical to the "digital" organization that KCI has a series of courses designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the key elements needed to manage IT or MIS.
Some of these offerings can be packaged into a designed certification program for your organization.
Using IT Change Management
Description:
Change today has taken on many faces. There many changes that are impacting those in management today, such as organizational, technological, economic, social, managerial and many other changes. Information technology is impacted by all of these changes and must deal with them on a daily basis.
Management is much more than just supervising or administering a group of people or projects. It is the focal point of enterprise transformation success and the point where new technology, management techniques, disciplines and tools are expected to achieve results. The ranks of middle managers and corresponding support professionals are being slowly changed and reduced, increasing the load on the remaining managers.
This one-day course identifies the drivers of change the manager must deal with, how they impact the IT function and what managers can do about them. The structure of the course revolves around lectures key skill-building exercises. The interchange of ideas among attendees provides a rich source for people to compare their experiences and company change management policies. This course is also useful to those who are about to enter the management ranks or are interested in understanding how to deal with change in their companies.
Who should attend: New Managers, Existing Managers updating their skills, Professionals, Business Analysts and Business Architects.
Duration: 3 days
Implementation of Business Systems
Description:
Successful business system implementation today is properly engineering the solution in a high quality manner. Systems development has gone through a remarkable transition. One thing has remained the same is that a general set of principles govern the development life cycle regardless of the approach to construction.
Once the requirements are complete, a design is generated for the new system. Along with the design is a plan for testing and implementation of the result. Applying Agile and other development methods help keep projects in budget and on schedule.
Duration: 4 days
Requirements Driven Applications
Description:
Now that you know what systems are needed you can focus on the construction and deployment of various applications and a variety of approaches such as packages, SOA, SaaS and others. Business systems development takes a perceived business need and transforms it to a beneficial solution for the enterprise. At the core, the key to successful business system development today is properly stating the requirements for the solution. Pulling both business and system requirements together in one place and then partitioning for the different emerging needs and approaches is the way to achieve success.
Since there are several ways to provide a solution to a set of business needs, depending on a range of new approaches, methods and techniques, this can be a challenge! The mapping of requirements today into a technical solution is one of the more difficult tasks facing business systems development.
Duration: 4 days
Business Systems Analysis
Description:
If you have the business requirements how do you decide on what systems to build and deploy? This course builds on existing and working ideas of requirements analysis with new ideas and techniques. It provides a focus to several emerging areas of concern such as e-business, business intelligence and new application development approaches. Many requirements approaches focus on data and process requirements for computer applications. Others are specific to specialized disciplines such as object techniques and structured analysis. This course offers a baseline of techniques and a means of adapting them to various requirements needs.
Duration: 4 days
Getting the right Business Requirements
Description:
Business requirements analysis is more than just gathering some needs input from the business. It forms the basis of understanding and improving the business from several perspectives, performance, technology utilization and effectiveness.
Understanding where to apply scarce resources for improvements that yield measurable results is a key result of requirements analysis. The goal is results that are less expensive and easier to achieve than the existing methods. The mapping of requirements today into a technical solution is one of the more difficult tasks facing business systems development. The focus in this course is on business analysis, developing the business requirements and connecting to potential solution approaches.
Business requirements analysis takes a perceived business need and transforms it to a beneficial solution for the enterprise. Often this is a combination of both manual and digitized solutions. Years ago, business systems requirements had a simple and single focus: to automate existing processes. The approach to developing a business system consisted of computer application systems analysis, design and development.
Today there are several ways to provide a solution to a set of business needs, depending on a range of new approaches, methods and techniques. Outsourcing processes, business systems development and operation of enterprise infrastructure are popular. Acquiring packaged solutions and changing how you do business is also appealing. Alternatively, building your own new business system provides benefits of a unique solution. Future system solutions may involve a mix of these approaches for the most effective results. You will learn the following:
- Develop a consistent set of requirements for a variety of solutions
- Produce a requirements checklist
- Partition the resulting set of requirements into two or more solution approaches as needed
- Prepare a basic cost/benefit analysis and impact analysis assessment
- Appraise the impact of changes in processes and systems on the business as a result of requirements development
- Appraise and align IT performance, initiatives, applications and technologies that support business needs and justify IT investment
Duration: 2 days
To learn more, get a 
IT Business Requirements course brochure.
Why SaaS makes Sense
Description:
Software as a service along with other types of services are rapidly changing the way we do business. This course focuses on the value added by using the variety o ‘Something as a Service’ approach to IT.