Background
Because I have been involved in either small to medium small companies, or small teams, I have had the happy experience of generally productive and successful projects. I always knew there was a danger of going over budget or over deadline. However, since it was not my responsibility, I did not worry much about it. Just the reading and the PowerPoint presentation showed me how naïve that blissful state of mind was when the numbers of failed, over budget, over deadline, wasteful and cancelled projects were listed. I had a hard time believing that only 25% of IT projects are successful, so I started reading in financial newsletters, IT newsletters and on web sites.
These sources confirmed that fewer than half of all IT projects can be considered relatively successful. The number of reasons is staggering. I always thought of IT as sort of a separate part of the business, there only to serve the needs as stated, rather like the mail system or the power plant. So this presentation made me curious, because it showed IT as more integral, and that it was necessary for it to be so for strategic operational reasons. So my expectations for this course changed, since my view of the subject changed. (It was not going to be as easy as I thought before the class started.)
Expectations
Initially my expectations for this module were not high. I did not know how complicated this subject could get, nor about all the different configurations of interaction between IT and the organization. It just did not seem this complicated. Maybe it was simpler when organizations began incorporating IT into their business architecture. At that time I think maybe the amount of information involved was also a lot less.
I remember there were problems during emergencies like 9/11 and Katrina that “organizational knowledge” and data was a big factor in how well companies survived, because it is such a big part of most businesses. What surprised me there was that companies and government departments, such as the Port Authority of New Orleans, which had a lot of their data only in hard copy suffered bigger losses, because the hard copy did not survive as well.
I began to think that this module was going to be both more difficult and more interesting than I had expected. There seemed to be so many seemingly small thing that I had not considered. Actually, I never thought of IT as such a strategic asset. I knew it was important in computer driven and managed manufacturing, and things like customer information, employee records and contracts and orders were critically important. However, I am finding out that there are dozens of things I never even thought about.
Thoughts about Materials
I read a lot of the book before the lectures, so I would understand more of the lecture and materials. It is a lot more complicated than most people know. Maybe that is why there are so many failures. Maybe people in many IT projects only see the tip of that iceberg. A lot of what I read in the book and in some articles and websites I did not totally understand, but I hoped I could remember it until it made sense with something else.
When I study a really big and complicated subject, sometimes I have to do a lot of information gathering before I know how it will fit. It was that way with this module. More than half of the information made sense at the time it was delivered, but there was still a lot that I did not immediately understand. I made notes of this material, so I could refer back. I really like all the charts, because I can refer to those over and over and use them as a framework for what I learn. I also think that being able to get the PowerPoint presentations is really important for the same reason.
Not all the material presented makes complete sense the first time, and the discussion groups and the case analysis help me to understand what I really did not understand completely from the lecture. I can go back and connect the stuff said in discussions and the points of analysis of the case to that lecture when I have that PowerPoint, which is a good outline. I do not make good notes when I listen to a lecture, because it is distracting to try to write, so I just scribble things I think of during the lecture. Having the PowerPoint helps in that way.
Analysis of Learning Outcomes
Honestly, I really do not think I know all that I have learned yet. I think it takes time and needs connection. I brought a certain amount of experience and knowledge to this module with me from my past. I made connections between what I knew and what I was learning. Those things learned, especially ideas about strategy and how the different operations within and organization are interconnected by, though and to the IT department.
Of the learning goals on the PowerPoint, I think the understanding of the strategic holistic nature of IT is the one that I found most valuable. I already understood the important nature of information. However, I did not understand the whole strategic process of IT development as an organizational strategy. As I said earlier, I perceived it to be a supportive department, not an integral part of the organization. I knew that new technology could drive development. However, I never considered new uses for current technology.
I think the somewhat difficult analysis of the manufacturing case was really useful, because it was very concrete. In thinking about the internal functions of IT within a knowledge organization that provides services, these are not so concrete. I think doing this in the context of concrete things is easier than trying to analyze an organization that just steals in knowledge. It was difficult enough to use the concrete manufacturing environment.
I learn in increments, and not always in a forward linear manner. I go back to things that I did before but maybe didn’t totally understand. So I guess I go back and forth in keep connecting things. I think I learned more during the discussions than any other time. In fact, a little discussion, much more often would probably be even more helpful. It’s not so much what information you might get from other members, but how they react to what you think, and to what you think of what they think. I know that’s very complicated, but it’s a way he of organizing what you’ve learned and incorporating it with ideas from the other participants in the discussion.
Explaining what I think always helps me to understand what I think. I think, then it’s easier to connect what I’ve just learned to what I already knew, and it will be easier to remember. So that I can connect it to what I learned in the future.
This subject, even just using the manufacturing case is a lot more complicated than I would have expected before taking this class. When you think of IT and manufacturing. You think of computers driving robot store. I’ll just timing things and checking the quality. You don’t really think about all the other integrated processes, such as the ordering fulfillment process and the supply chain. IT has a lot more to do with the supply chain management than I would’ve expected.
Conclusions
I wish we had time to do a really complicated analysis as a group, especially in analysis of a knowledge organization that only supplies a service rather than one that supplies a product. I know we don’t have time to do these individually and get them graded and evaluated. In fact, I don’t know that I would have time to do such a complicated project considering my other obligations. However, analyzing a really be intangible knowledge organization case as a whole group, with the teacher as moderator. I think would be a really valuable experience. I think we learn a lot. That would be the only thing I think was actually missing here.
I know that it’s going to be maybe a very long time before everything that I have learned here connects with other things. However, I’ll keep these materials, because I do believe that there will be more and more connections in the future. I feel like I just barely scratched the surface. I know that I gained a lot of valuable information, and some good analysis skills. However, I think the information is not going to be really complete until I have a chance to apply it in a real world situation.
I think this is going to make me look around a lot more and see if I can figure out where the IT is, what strategy is being applied and what might be connected to it. I find myself think about this when I go into any business, even my local supermarket. So I see that this module has really changed the way, I think about IT. I never used to think about the presence of IT everywhere we go. I’ve had discussions with other people about how IT is insinuated into every part of our lives now, but I never considered this strategy of the planning of how it functions within an organization. Ideally, I think it does have to be integrated throughout the entire organization, and that the management has to be part and party of the organizational strategy and operations.
I think the more involved that IT becomes in this strategic planning the more that dismal success rate for projects will go up. Just as IT doesn’t operate in a vacuum, neither does the organization. IT projects should not be isolated as if in a vacuum. I think the analysis of the project just as our analysis of these cases is critically important for the success of the project. I think all these interconnections that we examined and a dynamic quality of the interaction of technology development and business development, even in businesses that have nothing to do with computers, make project success both more important and more difficult.
I think if you don’t understand these dynamic processes you have much less chance of successful project management. Successful project management has to begin in the planning. The planning has to be realistic or it’s just doomed to fail. It can’t be realistic if all the dynamics are not understood. I think that is where the importance of this kind of module really becomes apparent.
I know that I know more than I did before, but I feel like I know a lot less, because I understand how much more a need to learn. I’m going to read a lot more case studies especially for IT projects, not necessarily to analyze them, but just to have them there kind of boiling around with the rest of what I’ve learned. Sometimes you just have to gather a lot of information and let your brain match it up with the organized learning.
I know kind of works that way with language sometimes I just play a foreign-language station in the background, not really paying attention to it, but my understanding of the language I’ve studied gets better just because my brain hears it. I think a lot of the information I gained in this module is rather like that it’s only going to be background noise until I have something really solid to connect it to in that way this module provided a lot more than what was described. It has provided a framework for more learning.