Executive Guide to Preventing Information Technology Disasters

Recent and well-publicised disasters have highlighted the fact that organisations of all kinds - from healthcare to aerospace - are critically dependent on Information Technology systems. The prevention of catastrophic I.T. failure is now an essential part of management.
In this thought-provoking guide for executives and managers Richard Ennals argues that the critical factor is not technology, but people and communication.

1. Introduction.- Disasters: Some Examples.- Disaster Prevention Through Skill.- Fraud: Management in Crisis.- Systems and Decision-Making.- Strategic Functions.- Technical Issues.- Organisational Cultural Issues.- Intelligent Solutions.- How to Cause IT Disasters.- 2. Historical and Technical Perspectives.- Single Technology Solutions.- Tools.- Keeping IT Simple.- The Emperor’s Old Clothes.- Human-Centred Systems.- Executive Information Systems.- 3. Culture, Competence and Complexity.- The Demands of the Modern Economy.- Challenging Professionals.- Engineering as a Form of Life.- Competence and Professional Education.- Subcontracting the Management of Complexity.- Consequences of Discontinuity.- A Question of Scale.- Working on Infeasible Projects.- The Case for Programming.- 4. Issues of Integration.- Managing IT in the Organisation.- Expert Systems and Mainstream Software.- Management and Information Systems.- Open and Distributed Systems.- Business Health.- Computer Viruses.- 5. Management Dilemmas.- Problems.- Professionals.- Panaceas.- Method.- Automation.- People.- Standards.- Quality.- Profits and Prophets.- 6. Learning from Experience.- Support Services.- From Computer Centres to Distributed Processing.- Networking the Organisation.- IT Strategy as a Process.- Who Needs to Know What?.- Crisis and Disaster.- Responsibilities.- Pragmatics.- 7. Information Technology and Business Ethics: Case Studies.- Wessex Regional Health Authority.- Compliance with Financial Services Legislation.- Training and Enterprise Councils.- Selling Solutions.- Defence and Diversification.- Marketing Quality.- Talking to Your Computer.- Arms, Technology and Business Ethics.- 8. Information Technology Consultancy.- To What Extent Can Consultants Help to Prevent IT Disasters?.- Consultants, Outsourcing and the Fear of IT Disasters.- Accountability and Responsibility.- Business Process Re-engineering.- Disasters, Strategy and Development.- 9. Ways Forward.- Education.- Economic Collapse and Change.- Learning from Political Experience.- A New Management Paradigm: Human-Centred Systems.- Disaster Recovery Planning as Strategic Planning.- Practical Next Steps.- References and Bibliography.- Name Index.