Course Objective

The objective of this course is to give students the personal and technical tools for managing and planning an information technology environment. We will learn both theory and practice of technology management by working on real business problems together. Where possible we will bring practicing managers to the class and use them for resources, as well as contact representatives from different companies.

This class has been asked to conduct several Best Practices studies for the IS organizations of members of the Center for Management Information Studies. "Best Practices" is a term from the literature of Total Quality Management that refers to the goal of comparing an organization's performance to the best of any competitors. Industrial Best Practices studies require a company to measure their own performance in an area in specific ways and compare these measures against a database of competitor performances. Since we do not have such a database, we will conduct theoretical evaluations, discuss with company representatives, discover or devise appropriate measures and ask the member IS organizations to provide data for comparison. Students will operate in groups in the same way they would do this in business. Part of each week's curriculum will be a staff meeting in which groups report on progress, identify problems and share resources.