Your performance in this course will depend on your ability to complete and submit your work assignments on time. When you are submitting your work I expect a professional submission. This means:
As an aside, I try to return your work the week after you submit it to me. I can achieve this goal if the papers are neat and readable. Now, some of you will ask "Why don't we just submit our assignments to you via the Internet?" Well, right now, for grading purposes, there is still no better (or faster), way for me to provide you with feedback than to have you print a paper copy of your work and submit it. As soon as I can annotate over top of your submissions (circling things, drawing arrows, making quick notes in margins, etc), then we can more effectively use electronic mail. Remember, I have 80-100 students and occasionally the workload may preclude a quick turnaround.
This exercise is designed to acquaint the student with the emergent challenges of management of virtual group work, an increasingly common facet of organizational life. Student teams will participate in a team problem solving activity exclusively through the Internet. When completed, each team member will write a short paper (3-5 pages) on his/her experience, with impressions of the technology, task, communication and coordination, and group dynamics (virtual group dynamics).
The 10 points associated to this exercise are to be distributed as follows. 5 points for accomplishing all facets of the exercise, following all the rules of the exercise. 5 points for the paper, the quality of discourse and the breadth of ideas. Penalties of up to 2 points will be given to teams not performing at an acceptable level. Bonuses of up to 2 points will be given to high performing teams (interaction, synergy, completeness).
The simulation is a team assignment but the paper is an individual effort! Approximate Weight: 10%
PART 1: ANALYZING A PROCESS
Identify and describe a process in your organization or background that you feel may be a candidate for process innovation. This may be the process you first examined with the QFD analysis or a fresh process.
In this first assignment, you must produce a written description of the current process (AS IS). Your text is limited to a maximum of 5 pages. A significant amount of your grade will be based on your ability to specify the problem/process succinctly, yet comprehensively. You then need to produce the graphical AS IS model using the IDEF-0 methodology. This is intended to demonstrate a high-level, thorough understanding of the process, not a detailed analysis. You may use any software you like, but the process diagram must conform to the IDEF-0 standard. BPWin is the software that we have a license for and it will be available on the network or downloaded and run from home for the duration of the course...
You will create a World Wide Web page that incorporates the above requirements. Grades will be based on your ability to specify the problem/process succinctly and incorporate HTML properly.
This assignment can be completed individually or in small groups (2 or 3). Approximate Weight: 15%
Here are some examples of work from a previous class (with varying levels of success - you be the judge):
PART 2: INNOVATING INTO A NEW PROCESS
Re-engineer the AS IS process into an improved process that makes use of IS and IT to become more efficient and effective. Again, this assignment has a written component and a IDEF-0 diagram component. This can be completed individually or in the small group you developed part 1 with. All work must be published on the web.
After grading, I will select the "most interesting" 5 assignments for presentation to the class. Approximate Weight: 20%
Here is a PKZIPed example of excellent work from a previous class (I have not included their budget analysis, 'tho): Engineering Process.
SQL: a take-home test of your ability to make relational database ad-hoc queries using the Structured Query Language. This is an individual assignment. Approximate Weight: 15%. Possible Answers
CASE MEMOS - For 5 out of the 10 cases we will be discussing, I would like you to write up a short, "strategy recommendation memo" (NO MORE THAN 350 WORDS - if > 350, grade = 0) and hand it in before the start of class. I will read and grade them on a scale of 0-100. Approximate Weight: 30%
Here are examples of good work from a previous class: USAA, UBS
Quality Class Participation: If by the end of the class, I cannot associate your name/face to your mind, then you will receive a very low score. However, if I can associate you with high quality participation, you will recieve a high score. Approximate Weight: 10%
Last Changed Jan, 2000