In this case study, an aluminum company is struggling with its information technology (IT) structure. The position of director for IT had been vacant for a year, and Mr. Ouellette has been selected to lead the position. Ouellette discovered that a lot of information systems (IS) were out of date and projects were not being properly supervised from the top down. Without a clear and organized structure, strong leadership, or accountability any company is sure to fail. Ouellette’s ideas in reorganizing the issues within the ALCON IT infrastructure were vital in saving Alcan money and preventing system failure. In addition, there are some recommendations for how a company can identify the best route for improving hardware configurations. First off, the roles and responsibilities for each supervisor was not clearly defined. For example, one of the supervisors that Ouellette worked with did not understand what was expected of him as a department head. So he took it upon himself to manifest his own duty description in order to justify his position. Roles and responsibilities define what each person does in a company. Kumar (2013) states, “In order to effectively manage your staff and meet company objectives, it is important to provide everyone with a clear definition and understanding of their role, function, and responsibilities in the workplace. Failing to define workplace roles and responsibilities can create tension, mis-communication and inefficiency within your business” (Kumar, 2013, ¶. 3). Structure within an organization is critical and can play a significant role in how people are managed. The second part of this case study worked to the company’s advantage. Ouellette’s intent was for the supervisors to understan... ... middle of paper ... ...an1 Case – Part A2, 3. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from https://cdad.trident.edu/Uploads/Presentations/1039509652010007.pdf Dubé, L., Bernier, C., & Roy, V. (2009). Taking on the Challenge of IT Management in a Global Business Context: The Alcan1 Case – Part B2, 3. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from https://cdad.trident.edu/Uploads/Presentations/1039569652010008.pdf Duggan, T. (n.d.). How to Develop an Organization Structure. Retrieved February 22, 2014, from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/develop-organization-structure- 4902.html Glomark & Governan. (2008). ITIL Benefits Benchmarks Study Release. Retrieved February 23, 2014, from http://www.glomark-governan.com/images/ ver_2_ITIL_one_pager.pdf Kumar, K. (2013, May 16). Copy of Human Capital Management. Retrieved February 20, 2014, from http://prezi.com/yvvo6i_lwlmj/copy-of-human-capital- management/
Do not let any one individual in your IT group become the sole point of failure. Correct assessment; ironically it was a knowledge management system that led to the crash of the network. Succession planning is key ingredient to success for businesses.
Every manager wants nothing more than to see their organization succeed and an important part of their organizations succeeding is that their employees are completing their duties to their fullest potential. If for some reason the responsibilities’ of the employees are not getting accomplished, then it is up to the manager/supervisor to step in and resolve the situation. It is stated in the textbook that, “It is the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that his or her unit meets its goals, ad that means ensuring that employees perform their tasks effectively.” (Werner & DeSimone, Pg. 327).
Organizations are initially structured around tasks, and as the organization continues to grow, the structure within the organization takes on many characteristics. Not all structures are advantageous, especially if they are lacking in some areas. There is a relationship between structure and size of the organization that affect the centralization of the organization. At the highest levels, the personality of the chief executive may amend the organizations' structure. The structure within an organization helps define the roles and responsibilities among the members from each department and work group. The four general types of organization structure are functional, divisional, matrix, and project based. “Organizational structure is the skeleton of an organization” (Feigenbaum, 2013) and how these individuals relate to each another. Structure is a statement of the current affairs, not the ideas, intentions or improvement within an organization. When business leaders develop their initial plans for an organization, he or she looks at how to design a company and takes inventory of all the tasks, functions and goals of the business. The leader then develops groupings and ordering of job positions, departments, and human resources to effectively and efficiently perform these tasks. Technology, size, environment, strategy and goals affect an organizational structure and effects, whether they are categorized as mechanistic or organic.
Responsibility is a big key in being a great leader because it is both a curse and a gift. There is a difference between taking responsibility of something and giving responsibility. To be given responsibility of a certain thing is a privilege because it exposes a certain type of trust. Assuredly as a C.E.O., knowing the difference between the two could be a huge life saver; such as, giving responsibility to employees can increase productivity by letting t...
The Consumer and Industrial Products, Inc a company where their headquarters is based in the United States , also doing business internationally with facilities in Europe, Asia and South America. They are a manufacturing company what produced well known products to individuals and industries. This company is experiencing a great deal of trouble with their internal Payable Audit System (PAS) and how it would purchase goods; receive goods and pays for them. They are challenged with the redundancy and the lack of productivity to their system. They were finding ways to lower costs and eliminating steps in how these processes are getting accomplished. They decided that they needed to change their system and the way they did things at their business. There are some people, their roles and departments that will be closely involved with the process of this project. Some of these important roles will come from Ted Anderson director of disbursements, Peter Shaw the user project manager and Linda Watkins project director for the Payable Audit System (PAS). In addition, the Steering Group and the IS management department will have some important roles to the project too. Finally, there will be several major problems with the development of the project and how the one person would deal with these issues.
Sharma, D., Stone, M., & Ekinci, Y. (2009). IT governance and project management: A qualitative study. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 16(1), 29-50.
According to the Case study on Sheila and Alan, Shelia occupies a position as the head of marketing and sales and Alan occupies a position as the marketing manager. Due to their roles and status at work Alan must report to Sheila. According to Dr. Meredith Belbin there are 9 team roles. The first Team Role to be identified in this team profile is “The Plant”.
Some of these concepts can be further expanded upon by sharing a recent personal experience by this essay’s author on the subject matter. A work team with long term negative work attitude challenges and unexceptional performance was transferred to this author’s scope of authority from another department in the organization. The work team was made up of three employees and a team supervisor. The team supervisor displayed attributes of a Theory X belief system and was very vocal about dislike for work. Holding true to Theory X leadership characteristics, staff on the team were closely monitored in all aspects of their daily activities by the supervisor in an autocratic manner. Cross training the staff in each other’s duties wasn’t a priority for the Theory X supervisor. Furthermore, the supervisor’s expectations of the group reaching high productivity standards and goals were
Clear lines of responsibility and control functions are clear. Disadvantage of hierarchical Too many layers in the group, it is difficult and time consuming to communicate between employees. Decision making are not quick enough to react to the market. A role culture is adopted in Rolls Royce Group. ... ...
Turban, E. (2009) Information technology for management : transforming organizations in the digital economy. 7th ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Upgrading new technology equipment is a challenge even for a skilled IT team. To implement such a task, management should have a subject matter expert (SME) to oversee this upgrade and implementation. Leon Lassiter, VP of marketing, should have no business in the IT technical transition for MSCC. To solve this problem, Lassiter should consult with an IT professional and have them create and assist in the implementation of the desired change. The second problem that I would like to address is having MSCC creating an IT transformation timetable that would include; new system employees training, test trials for new systems, address legacy system issues, and financial cost planning. It would be imperative that MSCC implements an IT transformation timetable that would address issues that were discussed in the problem section. Mr. Lassister needs to contact UNITRAK and have them involved in the implementation of the new systems, as well as to assist in the training of the employees on the new system. The third problem to address is and is transparent throughout the case study is MSCC lacks a good channel of communication. It seems to me that at times management is not on the same page. Because of this, small problems seem to multiply and create bigger issues. To address this issue, it would be prudent that Mr.
Perry, B., 2005, Organisational Management and Information Systems. [e-book] Oxford; Elsevier. Available at: Google Books . [Accessed 14 November 2013]
My interest in Information Systems Management was drawn when I was working on my final year project at Maharashtra Institute of Technology under the able guidance of the head of the Computer Engineering department. Professor R. K. Bedi’s support provided a much needed boost to my confidence in my programming skills. This new found confidence, in conjunction with the organization management skills I had acquired through active participation in extracurricular activities like “Tesla”, in inter college programming fest, made me realize I wanted to pursue a program that had comprised a blend of both the computer science and management disciplines.
Management role is to provide powerful leadership and define goals and constantly ensure employees commitment to the organization in return the reward employees when targets reached. There is no fundamental conflict between the both sides and when the conflict occurs it presumed as abnormal behavior or an outcome of poor
Palvia P., Palvia S. & E. Roche (1996) Global Information Technology and Systems Management. Ivy League Publishing