Description
Management of IT
Exercise A5.Plan- Case Study Challenge Competition Team Plan Setup
Developed by Richard Halstead-Nussloch Version 22May19
Your name:
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• Submissions made through a means other than the D2L A5 Assignment Folder will be ignored and earn a 0.
• Submissions without your name stated above earn a 0.
• Submissions with the original questions and/or formatting removed from the file earn a 0.
• Submissions without adequate references or acknowledgements will earn a discounted grade, potentially a 0.
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• Second chances might be requested at any time through D2L email, and are awarded at the sole discretion of the instructor.
Performing Case Studies in the Management of IT
Being successful in this course requires you to review, evaluate, adapt and adopt methods for analysis and evaluation of the IT systems and HCI aspects put in place to support business processes; one needs to be able to apply these methods to cases that might be incorporated into your approach to managing IT and pursuing a case study. This exercise intends to aid you in doing so.
Overview of the IT4683 Case Study Situation
You have learned in LM5-Team that:
Imagine that you are in your first year as a first-line IT manager in a medium-size company in the healthcare sector. After a busy weekend on-call, you flex into work mid-morning on Monday and you see across the lobby your second-line manager and director in a group of their peers walking single-file between two security guards. As they see you, your director mouths “Goodbye and good luck” and your manager mouths “Take care of yourself.” You then remember the rumor of the prior Tuesday that your company was being acquired by a large, international firm with significant business in healthcare. You are immediately concerned, because your manager and director were your main mentors in managing IT.
As you pass by the security desk, the guard hands you an envelope with your name on it and says that you are to go to your office, open the envelope, and do what it says.
As you ride the elevator and walk to your office, you notice security guards everywhere; you also remember that on Wednesday last week, your mentors had pointed you to an interview 2 years ago of the acquiring firm’s CIO after they had acquired the third similar firm to yours. You remember that she stated the key to success in integrating the IT of the acquired companies was moving them quickly to what she called “evidence based best practices in IT.” You remember cringing at part of the interview where she said that meant all executive leadership down to second-line managers within the acquired firm become RIFed (RIF is Reduction in Force or laid off or downsized, etc.) and that the IT technical staff and first line managers would be selectively retained after completing a significant challenge competition. On average, they end up retaining about half of the challenged IT staff. When pressed for details, the CIO merely stated that all she would say is that the technical staff compete on technical layers of a very public case of IT failure, while the IT managers compete on the management layers of equally public (but different) case of IT failure. In this fashion, the CIO can assure her executives that the IT function within the acquired company is quickly aligned with their new corporate culture.
By the time you complete your anxious walk down memory lane, you realize you are in your office. You remember to open your envelope. On the first page is a notice that your company no longer exists on its own, having been acquired at 4:37 that morning by the rumored firm. The notice also states the name, phone, and email of your new managing director and directs you to call him at 7AM your time on the next day for a half-hour “get acquainted” session. The second page is an org chart showing that your new CIO is the one interviewed. The third page is an invitation to a conference call with her at 1PM today. The fourth page lists terms and conditions for a provisional employment period, which clearly states that in addition to completing your regular assigned duties, you will be working on a team of your peers to complete a challenge competition concerning healthcare.gov and that your continued employment in the acquiring company depends largely on the points you and your team can acquire in the competition. You also see a warning that if your regular job performance falls off during the multiple weeks of the competition, you will be immediately RIFed.
You spend the rest of the morning and your lunch hour “fighting IT fires” in your area and trying to get more familiar with healthcare.gov.
At 12:58, you join the conference call. Sharply at 1PM, your new CIO comes on the call, says everyone else should mute, and welcomes all on the call to IT management in the new company. She states that she is now either your third-line or fourth-line manager (your old company’s CIO was your seventh-line manager), and in your case you see on the org chart that she is your fourth-line manager. She says that in the phone call tomorrow with your new manager, you will be given your new email. You should log in and you will find a welcome email from her, and an email from her member of staff in charge of the challenge competition that describes what is required there. She then tells you that the former IT managers and IT directors that you reported to have been moved to another building where they will spend up to six weeks wrapping up and finding other jobs. She asks that you not communicate with them. She concludes by indicating that winners in the challenge will be offered a new job in their new company and losers likely will be offered a similar severance package to that given to the former IT managers and directors. She then wishes you well and closes the call.
You spend the afternoon “fighting IT fires” and when you get home you find a gmail from your former director with the message:
“Good news: Tomorrow, I start at XYZ company with 7% higher salary for similar responsibilities.
News: Let’s make this email the last contact for a couple months. They are crazy serious.
Best of luck!”
The next morning you dial your new manager at 6:58AM. You discover he lives in Europe, where it’s 1PM. You exchange pleasantries and he stays on the line with you while you log into your new email and change the password. He sends you a test email and you send a test reply. He says that he has reviewed your personnel folder and is happy you are aboard. He invites you to send him an email or two each week to update him on your regular duties and progress in the challenge competition as well. He concludes the phone call at 7:27 with one piece of advice: “Choose your teammates for the challenge competition wisely.”
You next open the email from your new CIO. It is an upbeat welcome to the new firm. She ends with the following:
“So that we can quickly get to know each other, these are some of my favorite things:
• Sound IT management with assurance and controls so IT does not keep our executives up at night
• Evidence-based practices and professionalism, e.g., ethics, researching and using data, completing staff work, etc.
• Positive, memorable user experiences distinguishing our IT from our competition’s
• Reasonable management of IT risk, e.g., security, buying insurance, etc.
• Continuous learning and improvement
• Delivering value to our business and being recognized for our IT capabilities to do so
All the best in your new company!”
You next open the email on the challenge competition and find:
• A welcome from the CIO’s Challenge Coordinator
• A link to a collaboration site (at KSU it is your Course D2L, focusing on LM5)
• A link to the healthcare.gov case study: https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-14-00350.asp
• A roster of potential teammates (at KSU, this is your D2L course classlist)
• A combined requirements document and project workflow checklist (at KSU, a word file in D2L LM5)
• A template excel file for project scheduling and task assignment (at KSU, an excel file in D2L LM5)
• A template powerpoint file for reporting (at KSU, a pptx file in D2L LM5)
• The scoring rubric for awarding points in the challenge competition (at KSU, a file in D2L)
Above is history to this point.
You should now be on a team and have submitted A5.Team. Part of A5.Team had you reflect and comment on your experience of forming up with a team and include it in a discussion post. You can use that continue this story as you are experiencing it.
Your job for this assignment (A5.Plan) is to spend time with your team completing the team plan for your case study. Please use the Team Planning Template Excel spreadsheet your CIO provided for this purpose.
Readings for this assignment:
• Readings linked from the course Readings ReadMe files
• Selected readings on the web for background on approaches to process analysis and case studies in the course of the management of IT
• Healthcare.gov case study available at https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-14-00350.asp
Actions/Deliverables for this assignment:
• Read as per above
• Research what you read
• Respond to this assignment within the file (leaving all questions and formatting intact) All questions required.
• Deliverable: Upload your response using the D2L A5.Plan Assignment Folder. Also upload a final copy of your team’s agreed to planning spreadsheet excel file.
• Deliverable: Make entries on the Module 5.Plan Discussion
• Deliverable: Cite all references and indicate which method used at the end of the file.
Q1 Required- 40 Points) With your team, review the Team Planning Excel Spreadsheet. With respect to typical project activities, there are traditional roles and responsibilities. Describe here which role/responsibility you would prefer to do for your team. Share as appropriate with your team. Here are some options:
Project Leader, Manager or Agile Scrum Master
Recorder
Documenter
Researcher
Analyst
In collaboration with your team take on one or two of these traditional roles to support project activities. It is best if your team assigns a lead and a backup for each of the roles. In your team’s planning spreadsheet, document the roles and responsibilities assigned, who is the lead, and who is the backup if assigned- you can add a tab to the file. Make sure a lead person for your team is listed in that column in the spreadsheet template.
Q2) Required- 50 Points) With your team, review the Task in the Team Planning Excel Spreadsheet for completing tasks corresponding to slide ranges in Case Study Report Template. With respect to task assignments, there are several categories where presentation slides fall into a task that is separated in the Team Planning Excel Spreadsheet. Make assignments for a lead and backup person for each of the slide sections and document in your team’s plan and document in your team’s plan file- you can add a tab to the file:
Initial Slides (Template Slides 1 – 4)
Slides for Strategic Alignment Issue (Template Slides 5-7)
Slides for IT Risk Issue (Template Slides 8-10)
Slides for Good HCI & UX Issue (Template Slides 11-13)
Slides for IT Assurance Issue (Template Slides 14-16)
Slides for IT Project Management Issue (Template Slides 17-19)
Slides for Summary (Template Slides 20-22)
Slides for Recommendations and Lessons Learned (Template Slides 23-24)
Slides for References and Acknowledgements (Template Slide 25)
To help you decide on an issue, here are some details and hints:
• Aligning IT strategy with the business strategy to provide value (hints: there was no vetted business strategy for the marketplace and website; requirements kept changing; Business Concept misalignment: HHS and CMS were used to and wanted to work on policy and not (technology for) a marketplace website)
• Managing IT Risk, e.g., information security and identity management (hints: overly complex credentialing and login, data matching problems)
• Supporting good HCI and UX (hint: huge number of screens and large amount of time to complete tasks)
• Providing IT assurance (hints: managing outsourcing; the public provided the first stress test)
• Managing IT Projects- IT problem solving and IT continuous improvement through project management and change management (hints: the contractor was requested to double capacity in 3 days; HHS/CMS authority coordination and conflict; poor leadership and communication; HHS/CMS initially had no “integration vendor”)
Q3 Required- 10 Points) Complete D2L Discussion Posting:
• Using your answers to the questions above, review and summarize your ideas about case studies in IT management and planning for and performing them as a team project.
• Record your answers here.
• Also, enter your answers on the Module 5.Plan Discussion.