April 17: Presentations, Study Guide

Project #8
Project #8 team presentations will be made during class time this evening (April 17) in room 2145. Each team is required to give a brief (8-10 minute) presentation about its assigned topic. All team members need to be present and participate in the presentation to receive credit.

• Team 1 Topic – Security Budgeting


• Team 2 Topic – Outsourcing the Information Security Function


• Team 3 Topic – Cyber security Breaches


• Team 4 Topic – Computer Attacks and Incidents


• Team 5 Topic – Security Technologies


• Team 6 Topic – Security Audits and Security Awareness Training


• Team 7 Topic – Information Sharing


• Team 8 Topic – Security Policy and Software Issues

Study Guide
Following the presentations, there will be a brief review of topics for the final exam.
The final exam will be held Tuesday, April 24, 7:15 pm - 9:15 pm, in Room 2145.
A study guide is now available on the course website.

April 10 (Ch 20): Developing a 21st Century Organization

Organizations are facing changes more extensive and far reaching in their implications than anything since the modern industrial revolution took place in the early 1900s. Technology is one of the primary forces driving these changes. Organizations that want to survive in the 21st century must recognize the immense power of technology, carry out required organizational changes in the face of it, and learn to operate in an entirely different way.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

20.1 List and describe the four 21st century trends that businesses are focusing on and rank them in order of business importance.
The four primary information technology trends that businesses are focusing on include:

• IT infrastructures
• Security
• E-business
• Integration

20.2 Explain how the integration of business and technology is shaping 21st century organizations.

The integration of business and technology has allowed organizations to increase their share of the global economy, transform the way they conduct business, and become more efficient and effective.

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Business Driven Technology (Customized WMU Edition)
Baltzan & Phillips.

April 10 (Ch 19): Outsourcing in the 21st Century

In the high-speed global business environment, an organization needs to maximize its profits, enlarge its market share, and restrain its ever-increasing costs. This chapter focuses on businesses’ need to undertake every effort to re-think and re-adopt new processes, especially the prospective resources regarding insourcing, outsourcing, and offshore outsourcing.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

19.1 Describe the advantages and disadvantages of insourcing, outsourcing, and offshore outsourcing.

• Advantages of insourcing:
  – Improves requirements determination
  – Increases knowledge worker participation and ownership
  – Increases speed of systems development
• Disadvantages of insourcing:
  – Inadequate knowledge worker expertise leads to inadequately developed systems
  – Lack of organizational focus creates “privatized” IT systems
  – Insufficient analysis of design alternatives leads to subpar IT systems
  – Lack of documentation and external support leads to short-lived systems
• Advantages of outsourcing:
  – Focus on unique core competencies
  – Exploit the intellect of another organization
  – Better predict future costs
  – Acquire leading-edge technology
  – Reduce costs
  – Improve performance accountability
• Disadvantages of outsourcing:
  – Reduces technical know-how for future innovation
  – Reduces degree of control
  – Increases vulnerability of strategic information
  – Increases dependency on other organizations
• Advantages of offshore outsourcing:
  – Cost savings of 30%-50%
  – Attainment of higher service levels
  – Freeing up of in-house management to focus on strategic management as opposed to daily operational issues
• Disadvantages of offshore outsourcing:
  – Unproven on large scales
  – Instability of the offshore countries
  – Language, culture, and time zone issues

19.2 Describe why outsourcing is a critical business decision.
Outsourcing can give the right combination of people, processes, and technology to operate efficiently and effectively in the global marketplace without burdening time and budget.

Another by Tom Friedman that you might find interesting...

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Baltzan & Phillips.

April 10 (Ch 18): Managing Organizational Projects

No one would think of building an office complex by turning loose 100 different construction teams to build 100 different rooms, with no single blueprint or agreed-upon vision of the completed structure. Yet this is precisely the situation in which many large organizations find themselves when managing information technology projects. Organizations routinely over-schedule their resources (human and otherwise), develop redundant projects, and damage profitability by investing in nonstrategic efforts that do not contribute to the organization’s bottom line. Project management offers a strategic framework for coordinating the numerous activities associated with organizational projects.

Business leaders face a rapidly moving and unforgiving global marketplace that will force them to use every possible tool to sustain competitiveness. A good project manager understands not only the fundamentals of project management, but also how to effectively deal with change management and risk management. This chapter explores project management, change management, risk management, and outsourcing in detail.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

18.1 Explain the triple constraints and its importance in project management.
Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations from a project. The triple constraint includes three interdependent variables - time, scope, and resources. If one changes, they all must change.

18.2 Describe the fundamentals of project management.
The Project Management Institute (PMI) defines a project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

• Project deliverables are any measurable, tangible, verifiable outcome, result, or item that is produced to complete a project or part of a project. Examples of project deliverables include design documents, testing scripts, and requirements documents.
• Project milestones represent key dates when a certain group of activities must be performed. For example, completing the planning phase might be a project milestone. If a project milestone is missed, then chances are the project is experiencing problems.
• Project manager is an individual who is an expert in project planning and management, defines and develops the project plan, and tracks the plan to ensure the project is completed on time and on budget. The project manager is the person responsible for executing the entire project plan.
• Project management office (PMO) is an internal department that oversees all organizational projects. This group must formalize and professionalize project management expertise and leadership. One of the primary initiatives of the PMO is to educate the organization on techniques and procedures necessary to run successful projects.

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Extended HCoB Lab Hours

Just a reminder that the HCoB computer lab will be open extra hours on weekends until the end of the semester.

Apr 3 (Ch 17): Building Software to Support an Agile Organization

Organizations must learn how to build and implement disruptive technologies, such as software for wireless devices, to remain competitive. Software that is built correctly can support agile organizations and can transform as the organization and its business transforms. Software that effectively meets employee needs will help an organization become more productive and enhance decision making. Software that does not meet employee needs may have a damaging effect on productivity and can even cause a business to fail.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

17.1 Identify the business benefits associated with successful software development.
The benefits associated with successful software development include:
• Increase in revenues
• Repair to brand reputation
• Prevent liabilities
• Increase in productivity

17.2 Describe the seven phases of the systems development life cycle.
The seven phases in the SDLC include:
• Planning phase – involves establishing a high-level plan of the intended project and determining project goals
• Analysis phase – involves analyzing end-user business requirements and refining project goals into defined functions and operations of the intended system
• Design phase – involves describing the desired features and operations of the system including screen layouts, business rules, process diagrams, pseudo code, and other documentation
• Development phase – involves taking all of the detailed design documents from the design phase and transforming them into the actual system
• Testing phase – involves bringing all the project pieces together into a special testing environment to test for errors, bugs, and interoperability and verify that the system meets all of the business requirements defined in the analysis phase
• Implementation phase – involves placing the system into production so users can begin to perform actual business operations with the system
• Maintenance phase – involves performing changes, corrections, additions, and upgrades to ensure the system continues to meet the business goals

17.3 Summarize the different software development methodologies.
There are a number of different software development methodologies including:
• Agile methodology – aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful software components developed by an iterative process with a design point that uses the bare minimum requirements
• Waterfall methodology – an activity-based process in which each phase in the SDLC is performed sequentially from planning through implementation and maintenance
• Rapid application development methodology (RAD) – emphasizes extensive user involvement in the rapid and evolutionary construction of working prototypes of a system to accelerate the systems development process
• Extreme programming (XP) methodology – breaks a project into tiny phases, and developers cannot continue on to the next phase until the first phase is complete
• Rational Unified Process (RUP) – provides a framework for breaking down the development of software into four gates.
• SCRUM – uses small teams to produce small pieces of deliverable software using sprints, or 30-day intervals, to achieve an appointed goal

17.4 Define the relationship between the systems development life cycle and software development.
Software is developed using the systems development life cycle. Regardless of the chosen methodology, each software development project goes through each of the phases in the systems development life cycle from planning to testing to implementation.

17.5 Compare the waterfall methodology and the agile methodology.
The traditional waterfall methodology is a sequential, activity-based process in which each phase in the SDLC is performed sequentially from planning through implementation and maintenance. The waterfall methodology is one of the oldest software development methods and has been around for more than 30 years. The success rate for software development projects that follow this approach is only about 1 in 10. One primary reason for such a low success rate is that the waterfall methodology does not sufficiently consider the level of uncertainty in new projects and the creativity required to complete software development projects in several aspects

The agile methodology aims for customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of useful software components. An agile project sets a minimum number of requirements and turns them into a deliverable product. Agile means what it sounds like: fast and efficient; small and nimble; lower cost; fewer features; shorter projects.

For a successful systems development effort you would avoid the waterfall methodology and use an agile methodology.

17.6 Explain why software problems are business problems.
Only 28 percent of projects are developed within budget and delivered on time and
as promised, says a report from the Standish Group, a Massachusetts-based consultancy.
The primary reasons for project failure are:
• Unclear or missing business requirements.
• Skipping SDLC phases.
• Failure to manage project scope.
• Failure to manage project plan.
• Changing technology

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Business Driven Technology (Customized WMU Edition)
Baltzan & Phillips.

Mar 27 (Ch 16): Integrating Wireless Technology in Business

Wireless technologies are transforming how we live, work, and play. Handheld devices are continuing to offer additional functionality and cellular networks are advancing rapidly in their increased speed and throughput abilities. These enabling technologies are fueling widespread adoption and creation of new and innovative ways to perform business.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

16.1 Explain the business benefits of using wireless technology.
Business benefits to using wireless technology include:
• Increase productivity
• Speed delivery to market
• Reduce operating costs
• Have universal access to information and applications
• Automate business processes
• Create user convenience and timeliness
• Ability to conduct business 24x7x365

16.2 Discuss the wireless trends that benefit consumers and businesses.
• Social Networking Gets Mobilized. Mobility is added to existing Internet business models, services and behaviors, driving traffic for wireless operators. Social networking applications initially are preloaded on many mobile devices sold and later become downloadable.
• Mobile TV. Per-view or per-minute pricing for “sneaking,” a consumer tendency to watch key minutes of a sports event or drama while engaged in another activity. Sneaking leads to more regular viewing, and within 3-5 years, mobile TV will become an indispensable service.
• Multi-Function Devices Become Cheaper and More Versatile. Intense competition and margin pressure will continue in the handset market, forcing prices of third-generation (3G) handsets below $90 and making them affordable for a wide range of users.
• Location-Based Services: GPS is the location technology of choice for the wireless industry. Handset manufacturers will continue to push GPS-enabled handsets as the technology evolves from popular in-car satellite navigation systems to a broadly accepted feature in wireless phones.
• Mobile Advertising. Major brands are shifting from basic SMS marketing to more sophisticated multimedia advertising.
• Wireless Providers Move into Home Entertainment. Mobile makes headway against fixed broadband operators, who have dominated Internet and cheaper voice service provision in the home. Wi-Fi will remains the primary wireless access technology.
• Wireless Security. There is a monumental need to put strong security measures in place. This could be the year that hackers really start paying attention to millions of wireless devices, the growth in mobile data usage and vulnerable points between mobile and fixed networks.
• Enterprise Mobility. Corporations switch from phones to mobile computers for transactions, data collection and messaging for a wide variety of employees. Many voice communications processes, such as order placement and delivery notifications, dispatch operations and remote asset monitoring, continue to shift to wireless data to increase information access and field transaction volume across organizations. Many corporations will completely replace their cellular handsets with a combined voice/data device or a data-only device.

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Business Driven Technology (Customized WMU Edition)
Baltzan & Phillips.