Information systems are a critical component of business success today. Unfortunately, many companies do not truly understand what an information system is; where, when, and how it should be implemented; or the effects of integrating it into the organization. As such, we continue to see implementation horror stories of projects run amuck--going over time and over budget--or information systems that never get fully implemented, requiring "work-arounds" by employees in order to get things done. Why is this the case? Are information systems so poorly developed, or is it more a case of companies not understanding what information systems are and how to integrate them into their business processes? The premise of this book is that it is the latter. If decision makers better understood what information systems are, how they worked, and, most importantly, what constitutes a successful information system; then implementations would be smoother, and benefits from information systems would be greater and last longer.