3. What were IT organizations initially created to solve? Why is this problematic for today's work?
4. What is the business model inherent in leveraging information technology? What does IT provide? (hint: it isn't necessarily speed, but ...?)
2. How do I hold conversations with the finance department about projects, especially when the finance dept pits IT projects against funding “new carpets”?
8. Can you outline and apply the model for IT dept success factors
4. State the reasons why a memo (such as you're creating for your project) is such an important document for companies? How might it have been useful to Grandma
Studor's Bakery or Laughlin Logistics?
***13. How does having standardized, sometimes vanilla software & processes help? You can use Owens-Corning as an example. What are some heuristics for implementing process standardization? (From both the actual lecture (only if you were listening) plus the posted slides)
3. What is good enough reengineering? How does it relate to customer design requirements gathering? What's the difference between the BlueSky approach to gathering design priorities from your customer versus a Realistic approach to your customer?
7. Why does Alan advocate an IT planning approach is a messy, untidy event? (hint: "write your plans in pencil") In other words, does the reality of the organization exist in an org chart? Or does it exist in the written policies? (Ask Alan in Class)
1. What is the relationship of advances in IT to Business Process Reengineering?
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3. What were IT organizations initially created to solve? Why is this problematic for today's work?
Brief Answer: IT orgs were initially created to solve problems of scale (e.g. bookkeeping, annual accounting). It’s problematic because IT is often seen as a utility to be minimized rather than something to enable strategy or profitability.
4. What is the business model inherent in leveraging information technology? What does IT provide? (hint: it isn't necessarily speed, but ...?)
IT normally provides scale but according to Topher (and myself), you can see scale as: a) reducing distance; b) automating repeated tasks; c) increase accuracy. The “scale thing” appears to parallels assisting an organization to grow and efficiently manage operational scale.
2. How do I hold conversations with the finance department about projects, especially when the finance dept pits IT projects against funding “new carpets”?
You try to redirect the conversation to: “what does the customer need/want?” This helps the finance group to think strategically. In companies in which IT projects are pitted against “new carpets”, then the IT projects will usually lose. That’s because it’s being approached as a utility. It should be thought of something that can serve the customer, enable profitability / strategy, and efficiently manage the company’s growth.
8. Can you outline and apply the model for IT dept success factors
Hint: 2nd slide on the posted due diligence lecture
4. State the reasons why a memo (such as you're creating for your project) is such an important document for companies? How might it have been useful to Grandma
Studor's Bakery or Laughlin Logistics?
Brief Answer: a) it encourages IT to enable company strategy; and b) it helps companies see the forest among the dense trees within the jungle of IT.
***13. How does having standardized, sometimes vanilla software & processes help? You can use Owens-Corning as an example. What are some heuristics for implementing process standardization? (From both the actual lecture (only if you were listening) plus the posted slides)
Brief Answer: This was answered at length during the Owens-Corning lecture and during the review: a) helps adapt dysfunctional groups to standard (and probably best) practices; and b) helps to kill legacy processes. On the first implementation, you want to customize only those processes that truly differentiate the company. You try to take the stance however that customization must be justified, not the other way around. After the company has had a good period to adjust to the “mostly vanilla” implementation, you can then ask for some further customization. This hopefully will results in a much more sensitive approach from the troops to customized processes.
3. What is good enough reengineering? How does it relate to customer design requirements gathering? What's the difference between the BlueSky approach to gathering design priorities from your customer versus a Realistic approach to your customer?
Brief answer: GER is about ensuring that the mission critical processes are finished first. It’s a vanilla approach with ”prioritization” assed to it. You don’t approach folks with “if you could have your ideal system, what would it look like”. It gets closer to the other extreme: “can you live with this? How about this or that?”
7. Why does Alan advocate an IT planning approach is a messy, untidy event? (hint: "write your plans in pencil") In other words, does the reality of the organization exist in an org chart? Or does it exist in the written policies? (Ask Alan in Class)
Most of the meaningful activities of an organization occur “below the water”. The organization is not the org chart, nor the written rules, or very rigid projects lists. Many important things happen through informal communication. For example, someone from marketing is having a coffee break with someone from IT. From an informal conversation, it’s found that a major (and urgent) problem can be neatly solved. You have to find ways to allow these serendipitous events to “bubble up” and intrude upon the company planning process (of what projects to approve for the year.
1. What is the relationship of advances in IT to Business Process Reengineering?
There is an advance in technology and then there’s a lag until someone bright finds a way to leverage it to make major improvements. You’ll typically have a huge advance (e.g. cell phones) and then much later, companies deployed the mobile workers with wireless phones.
I had a couple more questions for you.
3. Will IT architecture changes alone create organizational change? Is it all about organizational silos? What's the relation between data silos and organizational silos?
***11. Argue why an Enterprise App vendor is really a process company rather than just a software company. Discuss how this affects your choice of an Enterprise App vendor.
Answers or where to find the information would be great.
Thanks.
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