IFSM 300 Questions

Question 1: 

Benefits of Enterprise-wide Data Sharing

As identified in the CIC Case Study, a critical success area is the ability to have employees who possess the necessary knowledge and skills to fulfill current and future contracts.  There are several areas where a business might need improvement, including:  recruiting, hiring best- qualified candidates, tracking employees’ skills, and promoting and retaining employees. Over time, each of these might have its own IT solution.  However, you know that if you could combine these into an enterprise-wide system, you would be able to significantly improve the overall business operations.

Begin your analysis by answering these questions:

1)  What organizational opportunities are being missed when each HR function (as listed above) has its own “stove piped” data?  (Provide an example)

2)  What business benefits can a company realize if an enterprise-wide system is implemented?  Identify how management will benefit from having additional information available. 

3)  What types of decisions could be improved if all this information were in one place and easily accessible to HR and managers?

  

Question 2: 

As the   Chesapeake IT Consultants Case Study states, the executives and employees   have identified a need for an effective and efficient hiring system. 

In the Section   III of the Business Analysis and System Recommendation Report (Stage 3   assignment), you will be defining strategic outcomes, analyzing the current   hiring process, and defining some essential requirements for the information   system to support the hiring process at CIC. 

Week 6 Content contains an article Good Practices for Developing User Requirements.

For this week’s discussion, post an initial response with:

1. How an organization can benefit from information regarding its applicants, current and past employees to gain a competitive advantage.  (Research will provide specific examples of what some companies have done.  Also, in Course Content for Week 5 – Information Management Module – Knowledge Management — introduces MITRE Corporation and its use of Knowledge Management.)

2. Include two specific user requirements (what users should be able to do with the solution) to help achieve those benefits. 

Question 3: 

Review the “triple constraints” of IT Project Management as covered in this week’s reading “What is Project Management?”, noting there are more than 3 constraints discussed in it.  The illustration above from the article shows the author’s interpretation of the “triple constraints”.

Please address these 3 questions:

1. Which of the triple constraints do you think is the most important for the project of implementing an enterprise hiring system for CIC?  You should address from a project perspective  not the business overall.

2. Explain briefly why you selected that constraint.

3. Discuss how you would ensure that this aspect was well addressed to maximize CIC’s chance for success successful implementation.

  
 
Question 4: 

This week’s   discussion focuses on the benefits, considerations, and risks of adopting a   Software as a Service (SaaS) approach.

Review the Week 6 reading   SaaS Vendor Selection and then prepare your initial response as follows:

1. List two benefits of the IT Strategy to use a SaaS solution to support the hiring process.

2. Identify three things the CIO and his team should look for as they consider which SaaS vendor to select.  Explain what they are, why they are important to CIC’s business.

3. Then, explain what you think is CIC’s biggest risk in outsourcing this IT function, why you selected that risk, and what CIC’s IT department’s key responsibilities are to minimize risk and protect the business as they select and use a SaaS solution.