Strategic Management of IT – Fall 2016
MIS 3534 – Prof. Min-Seok Pang

Monthly Archives: October 2016

1 2

In-class discussion questions – Week 10 (Nov 7)

Published October 31, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • What would be the ramifications of the incident in IT Adventures Ch. 10? (Imagine the worst.)
  • Why did Mr. Wells, IVK VP of Legal, demand to pull the plugs?
  • How would you explain “wipe production servers clean, and rebuild the production configuration” (p. 170) to Mr. Williams?
  • Among the three options in Ch 11, What is the least costly option? What is the most costly option?
  • What is the most conservative option? What is the most risky option?
  • What are the reasons to disclose the security incidents? What would be the reasons not to disclose?
Posted in ,

Online discussion questions – Oct 31

Published October 31, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • In what ways can a relationship between a parent and a tutor go sour? How can a contract prevent or resolve it?
  • What are the other examples of “incentive salaries” for restaurant servers?
  • How would you explain the difference between a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an intrusion to a non-IT boss or colleagues?
  • If an intrusion was indeed occurred and it was the intruder who changed the database index file, why would he/she have done it?
Posted in , ,

In-class discussion questions – Week 9 (Oct 31)

Published October 24, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • If you were Mr. Barton, how would you explain the situation in Chapter 10 to your CEO, Mr. Carl Williams, in English?
  • If you were Mr. Barton, how would you explain the situation in Chapter 10 to Wall Street analysts you’re scheduled to meet today?
  • Did an attacker or attackers intrude inside of IVK’s systems?
  • How would you explain the difference between a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an intrusion?
  • How would you explain “transaction is jammed up” or “the database is corrupted” (p. 164-165)?
  • What does it mean by “Apparently a database index file had been somehow renamed, and another substituted in its place”? (p. 167)
  • Why can’t IVK figure out whether an intrusion occurred or something else happened?
  • What is the “rush-a-change-into-production” thing? (p. 166)
  • For Cho to find evidence of an intrusion, what does he need?
  • What would be the ramifications of this crash? (Imagine the worst.)
  • Why did Mr. Wells, IVK VP of Legal, demand to pull the plugs?
  • How would you explain “wipe production servers clean, and rebuild the production configuration” (p. 170) to Mr. Williams?
  • Among the three options in Ch 11, What is the least costly option? What is the most costly option?
  • What is the most conservative option? What is the most risky option?
  • What are the reasons to disclose the security incidents? What would be the reasons not to disclose?
Posted in ,

Online discussion questions – Oct 24

Published October 24, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • If you are running a manufacturing company, when/why would you let outside vendors (e.g. UPS, Fedex) handle logistics and delivery to customers?
  • When would you keep delivery/logistics in-house and let your own employees do it?
  • What can you explain about information asymmetry and conflicts of interests in any other contractual relationship that you can think of?
  • What kind of “homework” or research would be needed in selecting an IT outsourcing vendor?
  • What would happen if you did not do enough homework in finding a mechanic, a contractor, or a doctor?
  • How should IVK choose a new vendor among VerxaWeb, ServoLith, and HiOSoft?
Posted in ,

Unofficial LETTER GRADES posted on Gradebook

Published October 22, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

I’ve posted unofficial mid-term LETTER grades on Gradebook (http://community.mis.temple.edu/gradebook/). This includes top 5 reading brief scores so far (dropping one lowest), Executive Report #1, and ROI Homework #1.

This is the grade you would be given if it was the end of the semester. Please be advised that this is strictly unofficial, and your final grade will depend on your performance for the rest of the semester.

Posted in

Week 8 – IT Adventures Ch. 7 and 14 – Brief Guideline

Published October 17, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.

Chapter 7

  • Why is the Infrastructure Replacement (IR) project failing?

Chapter 14

  • What are the differences between three prospective vendors for the IR project?
  • What are the differences between two contracting models that IVK is considering?

Your report does not need to include

  • “Wednesday, April 28, 10:12 a.m.” (p. 107-109),
  • the consultant’s report (p. 120-122),
  • “the third major disagreement” (p. 226-228),
  • “Monday, October 1, 11:00 a.m.” (p. 228-231), and
  • vendor assessment matrices (p. 233).

But please DO NOT SKIP to read them.

Posted in ,

In-class discussion questions – Week 8 (Oct 24)

Published October 17, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • Do you fix your car by yourself or have a mechanic do maintenance? Why?
  • How do you choose your mechanic? Based on what?
  • Why does Apple outsource the entire manufacturing operations to offshore vendors?
  • Why would a company outsource IT operation and development to an external vendor?
  • What would be the reasons that Otis DID NOT outsource the development of e*Logistics?
  • What’s a doctor-patient confidentiality?
  • What is the Infrastructure Replacement (IR) project for at IVK?
  • Why is this project not going well?
  • Why did IVK select NetiFects for the IR project vendor?
  • When selecting NetiFects, what homework did IVK do?
  • How do you choose your mechanic? Based on what?
  • If you did not do “due diligence” in finding an outsourcing vendor, what would happen to you?
  • What would be your choice among the three vendors in Ch. 14?
Posted in ,

Online discussion questions – Oct 17

Published October 17, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • There is only one person at IVK who knows how the internal IT prices are calculated. What would be the risks? How could he/she abuse the system?
  • Why is the slush fund at IVK problematic from the perspective of managerial (cost) accounting?
  • If you’re Mr. Barton, how would you make the case for new security project funding to business unit managers?
  • Any examples of public goods? (other than what we discussed in-class – defense, fresh air, public park, police, fire dept.)
  • Any examples of Prisoner’s Dilemma (other than what we discussed in class)?
  • If you are a professor, how would you make sure that everyone in a group project works hard and no one free-rides?
Posted in ,

In-class discussion questions – Week 7 (Oct 17)

Published October 10, 2016 | By Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D.
  • Which government spending do you want to cut – military, education, highway?
  • Is there a reason not to cut military spending? Is there a reason not to cut education?
  • Who controls the IT budget at IVK?
  • On what basis do the business units at IVK pay for IT?
  • Why had Mr. Davies, the former CIO, had to set up “slush funds”? How did he secure the slash funds?
  • The slush fund is technically what? from accounting standpoint?
  • Why is Mr. John Cho requesting an immediate funding on IT security?
  • Why has the request for IT security funding kept being denied?
  • What’s the consideration and decision of Mr. Barton in terms of IT budget funding and controls? What’s his rationale?
  • If he controls the entire budget, will all the problems go away?
  • What does Maggie, Mr. Barton’s girlfriend/consultant, mean by “one neck in the noose”?
  • Suppose that you pay income tax and can live in any house you want for free! (Your government provides housing for you.) What would happen?
Posted in ,
1 2
Categories
Archives
Recent Posts
Recent Comments