Instructor
William Wresch,
Ph.D. |
(920) 424 – 4151 (office) |
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(920) 231 – 2789
(home |
Clow Faculty 231 |
|
|
www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/wresch |
|
|
Applegate, L., McFarlan, F. W.,
and McKenney, J., Corporate
Information Strategy and Management: Text and Cases, 6th. Ed., McGraw-Hill,
Irwin 2003
Weekly
Discussions
Week |
Discussion
Topic |
Chapter |
Prepare |
Sept 11 ( |
Models of Management |
pp 1-20 |
Tale of Two Airlines (p21) |
Sept 12 |
IT & Business Advantage |
1 |
Taco |
Sept 19 |
IT & Business Models |
2 |
Quicken Insurance (p79) |
Sept 26 |
Networked Businesses |
3&4 |
American Express Interactive
(p374) |
Oct 3 |
Peter Drucker’s
view of IT |
(see web
site for materials) |
Internet Securities Inc. (p342) |
Oct 10 |
Organizing IT |
8 |
Harley Davidson (p617) |
Oct 17 |
IT Outsourcing |
9 |
Xerox – outsourcing (p655) |
Oct 24 |
IT Projects |
10 |
National Logistics Management
(p165) |
Oct 31 |
IT Security |
6 |
IPremier Company
(p491) |
Nov 7 |
IT infrastructure |
5 |
Ford Motor Company (p500) |
Nov 14 |
IT Infrastructure |
7 |
Postgirot Bank
(p519) |
Nov 21 |
|
|
[Thanksgiving Break] |
Nov 28 |
Global IT Issues |
Course
web site |
Submarino.com (p191) |
Dec 5 |
Global IT Issues |
Course
web site |
Nepal Pashmina
(online) |
Dec 12 |
Industry Presentations |
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|
This course presents the management responsibilities of
information technology leaders. It centers
on the responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and includes
such topics as project selection, risk assessment, IT infrastructure analysis,
IT organizational approaches, and strategic planning. An important part of the IT manager’s job is
to understand the views and needs of other corporate executives and to make
decisions understood and supported by them. To do this you will learn how to
assess technical and business opportunities and risks, how to achieve a fit
between business strategy and information technology architecture, and how to
assess emerging information technologies.
Case Presentation (3
pts)
Once during the course you will be one of two people who will lead discussion of a case. A sign-up list will be circulated during the first class period. Your description will have three parts:
History – Each case will include a description of the circumstances of the company. You are to select the events that are most important and describe their significance. Be selective. You don’t need to repeat the entire story of the company. Show that you have a sense for which events in the history of the company had the greatest impact on their current circumstances. Please don’t list every event on the history of the company.
Problems and opportunities - Of all the things currently happening with this company, what are the biggest problems management faces? Where are the opportunities?
Recommendations – If the executive team of this company called you in as a consultant, what would you recommend? Why?
Written case analyses (10 pts each, 60 total)
You will submit 6 cases for
grading. Please do not submit more than
6 cases; additional case write-ups will not be graded. You are responsible for choosing the cases
that you will submit from the list in our syllabus. Please don’t take the last five. At least two of your papers must be submitted
before the fifth class meeting. Do not write up the first case – A Tale of Two
Airlines – it is just a short sample case.
Each case analysis should be in
the form of a two-page memo addressed to senior management at the company
described in the case. Your memo should
have this outline:
Date:
TO:
FROM:
RE:
The first paragraph should serve as an executive summary; that is, it should briefly summarize the entire memo so that senior management can immediately see the issues and recommendations that you are bringing forward
These cases are complex and present many problems and opportunities. Of all the problems and opportunities facing management, which are the 1-3 that you think should be drawing management’s immediate attention. Why? Describe each in a short paragraph.
Since you raised 1-3 problems and opportunities, it is now your job to explain how each should be addressed. In one paragraph per recommendation, explain how your recommendation would be accomplished and explain why it would work. Sell your idea!
The entire memo should be
single-spaced with at least one-inch margins on all sides. Use 12 point type. Use headings between sections (Summary,
problems and opportunities, recommendations).
No memo should exceed two pages.
If it does, I will simple stop reading after two pages.
Spelling and grammar are
important. Your grade will be lowered if
your English is poor. Write complete
sentences and paragraphs. Bullet points
are also useful to highlight lists of ideas, but such bullets should be used judiciously. Keep your sentences short and avoid business
jargon (please don’t tell management to “be proactive.”). Use a spelling and grammar checker.
Rewrites: It is important to get things right the first
time, since, obviously, once you have sent a memo to your boss, you rarely have
a chance to do it over. But I will allow
1 rewrite in case you hand in a real disaster.
But only one case paper can be rewritten. If you do a rewrite, attach the original case
paper to the rewrite when you turn it in.
Important: No late cases will be accepted. All written cases are due at the start of the
class where the case is discussed.
4 Interviews (7.5 pts each, 30 pts total)
The
best way to learn about IT management issues is to talk to someone who is
involved in IT projects. Each of these
papers is to be 2-3 single-spaced pages.
As you will see, they correspond to a particular chapter we will be
studying the week the paper is due. My
hope is that by conducting these interviews you will be able to bring a practical
perspective to our class discussion that week.
Whether
on the supply side or on the distribution side, every business now has a large
number of connections to other businesses.
You are to take a close look at one such connection. An example might be the access your company
has to a supplier production schedule, or the information you receive from
independent distributors. Conduct an
interview with a person knowledgeable about that connection and create a
detailed description of the technology necessary to support that link. What protocol is being used? Who supports the routers? How is security managed? Explain the technical aspects of that
connection, then close with your evaluation of that
link – your appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses. Due Sept
26
Chapter
8 provides one model for organizing an IT shop.
Pick an organization of your choice and compare the model in Chapter
eight to the model used by that company.
Explain the similarities and differences between the two. Close by evaluating the company
organization. If you were CIO, what
would you keep and what would you change?
Due Oct 10
Cost
pressures are leading many companies to outsource everything from janitorial
tasks to warehousing. But each task
conducted by another firm still has to be managed by the contracting firm. Contact a company of your
choice and in three pages tell two stories: one IT outsourcing project that worked, and
one that didn’t. What were the lessons
learned? How are these projects managed
differently now than they were in the past?
Due Oct 17
Interview
someone who has recently completed an IT project and determine what risk factors
they had determined for the project. How
were those risk factors addressed? Do
you agree with their assessment and their response? Did their risk assessment differ from the
approaches suggested by Chapter 10? What
would you have done differently? Due Oct 24
7 pts - Online participation
7 pts Early contributor each week, helps with week-end
summaries, leads discussion threads.
5-6 pts Active
contributor each week, responds substantively
to the comments of others
4 pts Active
contributor
2-3 pts Contributions
don’t seem connected to the main
threads, limited interaction
0-1 pts Fewer comments, little substance, limited value to
others in the class
A=
93-100, A/B = 88-92, B = 83-87, B/C = 78-82, C = 72-77
On-line
classes
Those
of you who have taken an on-line course before know the chief advantage of this
medium – convenience. You don’t need to
commute to class, nor do you have to worry about business travel taking you out
of town during the semester.
There is a second advantage –
varied participants. With a regular
class you have classmates who live within commuting distance of the class. An on-line course can draw people from all
over the world, so you can read a much broader range of opinions on a
topic. This course will include students
from several states and will involve a group of university students from
But there are disadvantages. A “class” gives you a three-hour block of
time that is dedicated to one topic, and it gives you a deadline for doing
class projects. With no special time for
class, it is easy to put class off. Some
students find themselves falling further and further behind, and a few drop
out. Some people need the structure of a
class.
Additionally, on-line courses
involve a lot of reading. You will
probably find this course actually takes more of your time than a regular
class. Rather than cutting off
discussion after three hours, discussions can go on for days. No doubt you will find this class to be very
demanding.
Monday of each week I will create a
new announcement in D2L listing the resource materials I will be using that
week, such as web sites. I will also
post my lecture notes to the course web site (www.uwosh.edu/faculty_staff/wresch)
Those who are presenting the
week’s case will email me their outline so I can also put that in the course
web site.
The
case presenters will begin the discussion of their case, using the Panel
Discussion area of D2L. They will make a
general statement about their main findings, and then respond to class members. They can expect to spend two to three hours
online during the day and evening answering emails. Other class members should expect to spend
one hour reading the discussion threads and presenting their views on the case.
I will lead the discussion of the
lecture material. I will be on-line
frequently all four days. Class members
should expect to “visit” the site for about an hour to read the materials, ask
questions, and present examples from their own companies.
I
will ask for volunteers to summarize the discussion of the week. We will want 3-5 “take-aways”
that are most valuable to management.
Contacting me
Use
email (wresch@uwosh.edu). I have an
answering machine on my phone both at work and at home, so you can try me that
way, but it is usually easier on both of us if you just email when you have time
and I answer when I have time. I check
my e-mail once or twice an hour.