MBA 730
Information Technology
Management
Session 1
Introduction to the course
Agenda
• Introductions to you and me
• Introduction to the course
– Objectives
– Mode of instruction
– Cases
– Project
– Evaluation
– Session 2 and 3 deliverables
Notes
• Span industrial—information ages
– Born at the peak of US dominance of world
production
– Beginning of the “information age”
– First motorized vehicles on the Peffers farm
– Electricity a few years before; therefore running water
– Forge in the background
– Telephone just ½ mile away. Binary system long=two
cranks; short ½ crank. 8 households for each line.
Connection among lines using a plugboard
My background
• New College of Florida BA History
– Learning
– History
• Purdue University PHD MIS
– Research training
Research
– Business impacts of IT investments
– Adoption of IT
– IS Planning
• Improved applicable methods for IS planning
– Research about research
• Collaboration among researchers
• The future of IS research outlets
– Ranked as one of the 100 most productive IS
researchers in the world
JITTA
founder and
editor in
chief
Now in Las Vegas one year
• I have had a tract house built
• I’ve bought a Cadillac
Now, how about you?
• Mutual introductions
Course objectives
• What is this course about?
Course Objectives
• Investigate importance of IT to the
success of the organization.
• Understand major managerial issues
involving IT and develop conceptual tools
and strategies for dealing with them.
• Make a unique contribution to knowledge
about IT management by exploring a
problem or issue of special interest to
you.
Some issues
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IS Planning—what systems to build?
IS Planning—how much to spend?
Sourcing—who should build IS and operate them?
Evaluating IS—how much value does it add to the firm?
Understanding IS risks
IS development methods and risks
Managing IS projects
IT security and risks
E-commerce
Competing with information
Managing emerging technologies
Cases
• Nine major cases
– Cases put the concepts into context
– Help us to deal with the concepts in a context
of ambiguity
– Bring our own experience to bear on the
issues. Learn by analogy.
Case Preparation
• Study the case in advance
• Prepare position statement on the case and
bring it to class. This will be your talking notes.
• Your unique analysis of the case; not a case
summary
– Important issue, problem, or question in the case
– Material facts. Your findings.
– Analysis. Draw inferences from what the case says.
Make assumptions
– Recommendation—what should be (should have
been) done?
– Brief, note form, outline, bullets—no particular format
Case discussion
• Present in groups
– You will form own groups
– Group makes 20 minute presentation
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Material facts
Problem, issue, or question
Analysis
Recommendations
Briefly take questions
– Take the role of consultants or advisors
• Make the role explicit
• Audience take the role of firm executives
– I will lead the class in additional discussion
• Volunteers for first case
Project
• An investigation of some unique aspect of IT
management in which you make a contribution
to knowledge.
– Case study about how managers dealt with an IT
problem in the format of an article for a professional
or executive journal
– Analysis of a specific IT problem related to your
organization in the form of a policy memorandum.
– Pilot implementation of an IT management method,
e.g., for IS planning, requirements determination,
evaluation, risk assessment, sourcing, etc.
– Survey of research literature around a focused topic.
Project Deliverables
• Project ideas—Sept 1 (dates tentative)
– Project ideation workshop
• Project proposal—Sep 15
– Title, description of issue or problem, setting, method,
nature of outcomes expected
• Feasibility document—Oct 6
• Presentations: choice of
– Proposal
– Progress
– Final
• Report—Dec 6
Outcomes
• The nature of graduate study
• Static vs volatile disciplines
• Implicit assumption about you
Evaluation
• Preparation and participation: 20%
– Prepared attendance
– In-class discussion
– Group presentations
• Case presentation
• Project evaluation: 30%
– Presentation
– Report
• Exam 1 & 2: 40%
10%
Session 2 & 3 deliverables
• Session 2
– 2 project ideas
• Session 3—Does IT matter [to the
business]?
– Position statement on first three readings
– Email to me in advance of class
Does IT Matter—The purpose of IT
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Mainframe era
PC era
Network computing
What next?
I: The Mainframe Era (1950s-70s)
• Computing was centralized
• Computing was very expensive
• Information access was primitive (batch, dumb
terminals)
• IT considered a budgeted expense (project by
project)
• Automation of back-office operations
• Management Information Systems (management
reports)
II: The PC Era (late 1970s and
1980s)
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Personal computing on employee’s desktops
Decentralization of organizational computing
Increase of organizational computing power
Untrained IT-users take back control of Information
applications
• Decision support systems, e.g., spreadsheet models
for decision making
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Recognition of strategic value of IT
III: Network Computing (1990s to
Present)
• Availability of high bandwidth computer
networks
• Information sharing inside and outside the
firm
• New strategic opportunities for using IT
• Client-server computing model / IT
architecture
• Global networks
• End to end supply chain integration
IV: Mobile Computing ??
(near future)
Our Interest
• Our interest in the management of IT
• Can the use of IT result in better returns
[or other objectives] for the firm?
• Can a knowledge of how to manage IT
resources improve our own professional
value?
Schedule Change
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Library research briefing
Monday, Sept 13
We’ll meet here and walk over at 5:50
Our briefing will be in the Rhyolite Room, on the
first floor just inside the Harmon Avenue
entrance.
• This will require changes through the whole
calender.
• The Caregroup case will be presented on Sept
15
MS in IS Reception
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Thursday, Sept 2
5:30 pm
MSU 201
Bring along a colleague interested in the
MS program