In-Class Discussion Questions
In-class discussion questions for Mar 9
We will discuss these questions in-class on Mon, Mar 23. Do not post comments on this.
- What kind of standards do we enjoy in our daily life?
- Why do many European nations use Euro as a common currency?
- Why do the U.K. and some others refuse to adopt Euro?
- What are the benefits from a standard?
- What would be the costs in having a standard? By having a standard, we are losing what?
- Why does the U.S. refuse to adopt the Metric System?
- Why do states adopt E-Zpass for a common standard payment system?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 25
We will discuss these questions in-class on Wed Feb 25. Do not post comments on this.
- Why would an IT manager say no to the request of Marketing to upload the customer data to the consulting firm’s server?
- At a company where everyone uses Blackberry, why would an IT manager deny the request to allow to use iPhone for work?
- What can business managers do in this situation?
- What would happen if IT says no to business every time?
- What would happen if IT says yes to business every time?
- Mr. Barton says “Big companies needed more coordination, more management systems, and more controls…” (p. 142) What kind of control is he talking about?
- Why does Mr. Barton want the business units to take part of the responsibilities?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 23
We will discuss these questions in-class on Mon, Feb 23. Do not post comments on this.
- Who are a board of directors in a corporation? What are their responsibilities?
- Why do business firms need a board of directors?
- What does it mean by “Separation of Governance and Management”?
- What would happen if a CIO or IT managers receive no adult supervision or control? What if he can handle IT in any way he wants?
- Why does Mr. Barton make a presentation in front of IVK Board of Directors? What is the objective of Mr. Barton?
- Mr. Barton was the last presenter at the board meeting. What does it tell to the CEO and other executives?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 20
We will discuss these questions in-class on Fri, Feb 20. Do not post comments on this.
- 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?
- What should be “private goods” in IVK’s IT system? Who should pay for them?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 18
We will discuss these questions in-class on Wed, Feb 18. Do not post comments on this.
- Why do they free-ride in a group project?
- If you are asked to donate to a fire department instead of paying taxes for it, how much are you willing to donate?
- How about others? How much will your neighbors contribute?
- Any example of public goods?
- What is Prisoner’s Dilemma?
- What’s the consideration and decision of Mr. Barton in terms of IT budget funding and controls? What’s his rationale?
- What does Maggie, Mr. Barton’s girlfriend/consultant, mean by “one neck in the noose”?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 16
We will discuss these questions in-class on Mon, Feb 16. Do not post comments on this.
- 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?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 11
We will discuss these questions in-class on Wed, Feb 11. Do not post comments on this.
- When would you buy your own home instead of renting? What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying a house?
- What is a cloud computing?
- Why did we just discuss about buying vs. renting?
- When does it make sense to go to cloud?
- Why would a company like to use IaaS such as Amazon Web Services? Why would be the reasons not to use IaaS?
- Is Open Source Software really free?
- Will the quality of OSS be better than proprietary software?
- Which is more secure – open-source or proprietary software?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 9
We will discuss these questions in-class on Mon, Feb 9. Do not post comments on this.
- Why does an IT system need maintenance? It does not become rusty!
- On Page 58 of the textbook, it reads “we’ve run closer to 5 to 6 percent of sales on IT spending. Which, by the way, Davies thought wasn’t enough to keep IT assets from degrading over time..” Why does Mr. Davies mean by degrading?
- If it needs to spend money in maintaining IT systems, how much does a company need to spend on it?
- What happens with too little spending in maintenance? What happens with too much?
- Spending in IT maintenance should depend on what?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 6
We will discuss these questions in-class on Fri, Feb 6. Do not post comments on this.
- What is your recommendation for SAFE Project at SFO? Go or no go?
- How certain are you? Are you certain that everything will pan out as predicted?
- Which assumption or prediction is most sensitive (critical)?
- What are the problems with the ROI analysis we just did? What does this fail to account for?
- What are the intangible (hard-to-quantify) costs? What are the unexpected costs that we need to be mindful?
- What are the intangible (hard-to-quantify) benefits?
- How would you quantify benefits from increased compliance? Based on what?
- How would you quantify benefits from reduced security risks?
- What would be the intangible (hard-to-quantify) benefits from OTISLINE? How to categorize them?
In-class discussion questions for Feb 2
We will discuss these questions in-class on Mon, Feb 2. Do not post comments on this.
- How can we justify a large amount of investments in e*Logistics or ByRequest?
- Why is security a concern at an airport?
- Which individuals should an airport manage for security?
- Which information does a security system have to maintain? Which process does the security system have to handle?
- What are the risks from the current manual, inefficient processes in managing airport employee credentials?
- What could be the WORST-CASE scenarios?