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22 Part 1 • SyStemS analySiS FundamentalS

of boundaries that allow or prevent interaction between various departments and elements of
other subsystems and environments; and the existence of internal environments characterized
by degrees of openness and closedness, which might differ across departments, units, or even
systems projects.
Virtual Organizations and Virtual Teams
Not all organizations or parts of organizations are visible in a physical location. Entire organiza-
tions or units of organizations can now possess virtual components that permit them to change
configurations to adapt to changing project or marketplace demands. Virtual enterprises use net-
works of computers and communications technology to bring people with specific skills together
electronically to work on projects that are not physically located in the same place. Information
technology enables coordination of these remote team members. Often virtual teams spring up in
already-established organizations; in some instances, however, organizations of remote workers
have been able to succeed without the traditional investment in a physical facility.
There are several potential benefits to virtual organizations, such as the possibility of reducing
costs of physical facilities, more rapid response to customer needs, and helping virtual employees
to fulfill their familial obligations to growing children or aging parents. Just how important it will
be to meet the social needs of virtual workers is still open to research and debate. One example of
a need for tangible identification with a culture arose when students who were enrolled in an online
virtual university, with no physical campus (or sports teams), kept requesting items such as sweat-
shirts, coffee mugs, and pennants with the virtual university’s logo imprinted on them. These items
are meaningful cultural artifacts that traditional brick-and-mortar schools have long provided.
Many systems analysis and design teams are now able to work virtually, and in fact, many
of them marked the path for other types of employees to follow in accomplishing work virtually.
Some applications permit analysts who are providing technical assistance over the Web to “see”
the software and hardware configuration of the user requesting help, in this way creating an ad
hoc virtual team composed of the analyst and user.

Taking a Systems Perspective
Taking a systems perspective allows systems analysts to start broadly clarifying and understand-
ing the various businesses with which they will come into contact. It is important that members
of subsystems realize that their work is interrelated. Notice in Figure 2.2 that the outputs from
the production subsystems serve as inputs for marketing and that the outputs of marketing serve
as new inputs for production. Neither subsystem can properly accomplish its goals without the
other.
Problems occur when each manager possesses a different picture of the importance of his or
her own functional subsystem. In Figure 2.3 you can see that the marketing manager’s personal

Figure 2.2
Outputs from one department Outputs from
serve as inputs for another, such marketing
become the inputs
that subsystems are interrelated. for production.

Marketing
Production

Outputs from
production
become the inputs
for marketing.