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Below you will find a brief description of the courses I teach. All Course materials are available electronically. If you are interested in more detailed information on these courses, email me (bostrom@terry.uga.edu) and I will give you access to my LearningSpace courses. (LearningSpace is a Lotus Notes based course management system.) |
MIST 5750/7690: Business Process Management
Business processes, the activities performed by people or technology, to get products and services to customers, have always been the heart of a business. This course will develop your business analysis skills for modeling, analyzing, managing and changing businesses focusing on business processes. The emphasis will be on using information technology/systems (IT) to manage and improve business processes. Developing these business analysis skills will be essential for IT and non-IT professionals and managers who want to succeed in the changing business environment!
Business Process Management (BPM) is a systems management approach that defines an organization as a collection of processes focused on customer satisfaction, managing process using well-defined measures, and continually improving processes. Business Process Management System (BPMS) is a platform for developing and running information systems. BPMS is a new style of IT environment that focuses on moving more control of IT activities back into the business areas and improving business-IT collaboration. BPMS enables the BPM approach. This course will focus on both BPM the management approach and its enabler, BPMS technologies. BPMS are enabled by IT services-oriented architecture (SOA) framework that is fast becoming the norm for most companies. Software code will be generated for a SOA or web services environment.
By 2008, Gartner sees that over 80 percent of business application products sold worldwide will be service-oriented, software as a service business model. However, this BPMS_SOA environment is leading to an even bigger change! It is predicted by 2008, powerful development tools, supervised by small one-three-person teams of business analysts, will create most business systems without programming. Early versions of these powerful tools are already here today and will be used in this class. Large programming teams working to months-long schedules will fade away. The emerging research is clear that managing by process or adopting the BPM approach and adopting BPMS technologies leads to improve business results. Many argue that BPM will be the dominant management paradigm of the 21st century.
No matter what your current or future desired roles are, BPM is going to be critical to them. The future skills that will critical to IT and non-IT professionals and management at all levels will be business analysis skills. Analysis skills used to identify business process problems and opportunities and use people and technology to solve problems or make opportunities happen. This course will improve your process analysis and management skills as outlined in Course Outcomes.
MIST 6090:Introduction to MIS (MBA Course)
Course Description: This course will be an introduction to computer-based information systems from a managerial or professional perspective. The emphasis is on understanding how information systems technology can be used by managers and professionals to improve organizational performance, teamwork, and personal productivity. An experiential approach using case studies and assignments relevant to current or future work activities drives the learning experience rather than technology. Collaboration, decision support and database search technology will be used to support the experiential approach to learning. In other words, we will use and experiment with technology we will be discussing in the cases and assignments.
Course Background: The revolution-taking place in information systems (IS) technology (e.g., world wide web, e-business, e-collaboration, e-learning, client-server architecture, virtual reality, audio/video streaming, etc.) has opened up a new set of opportunities and challenges for the information management function within an organization. At the same time, pressures of increased demands for quality from customers and from global competition have forced organizations to change -- to do things differently and better. At the center of most of these changes is IS technology. The juxtaposition of the rapidly evolving technology capability and the pressures for change has led to a very dynamic information management function in organizations.
However, our track record in changing organizations is not very good! For example, a survey of IS projects in 365 firms found (Source: Sacovan, C.L. Managing MIS Project Failures, Dissertation Research, 1998.):
- 32% of projects are canceled before completion
- 53% cost more than 180% of original estimate
- Average project cost overrun is 222%
- 16% completed on-time and on-budget
Some IS project "classics" documented in the same research:
- California Department of Motor Vehicles: After 7 years and $49 million spent, project abandoned
- Denver Airport baggage handling system: 16 months extra effort to fix software bugs costing $45 million
- Foxmeyer Drug, a $5 billion company filed for bankruptcy in 1996, arguing that the primary cause of problems was failed system implementation.
Yet, there are many successes! Research investigating both change successes and failures has identified key best practices for managing change especially IS change. Most of these best practices focus on the fact that IS technologies are part of a broader socio-technical system and that this boarder systemic perspective is critical for understanding and changing organizations. This course will take a board socio-technical perspective focusing on the successful integration of technology, processes, people and organizational structure.
This course focuses on answers to the following questions: How can I manage technology and lead people through technology-driven change to accomplish my mission? What is it that all managers and professionals need to know in order to participate, in an active and meaningful fashion, in the management of the rapidly evolving information management function of an organization?
In answering this question, students completing this course:
- will be able to apply system concepts to the analysis and application of technology to business problems/goals/strategies;
- will have a broad understanding of IS technology and how it can be used by managers and professionals to improve organizational performance, teamwork, and personal productivity;
- will be familiar with the design and implementation processes and best practices for successfully managing and IS change effort;
- will be familiar with common MIS concepts and technology and able to apply this knowledge to the identification of opportunities for information systems;
- will be familiar with what an organization should use to identify and acquire the information technology capability that is needed to keep it efficient and effective;
- will be able to use collaboration, decision support, database query, and Web searching software to support classroom assignments and future work activities; and
- will be familiar with current and future MIS management issues.
In this course we refer to information technology as computer hardware, telecommunications, software, and data that can be used to support business processes. An information system is the application of information technology in a specific business application. Information technology capability is an organization's infrastructure of (a) existing computer hardware, telecommunications, software and data (b) technical information systems staff personnel, and (c) organizational policies, procedures, and culture related to the development and use of information technology and information systems. A well-developed IT capability allows the organization to quickly bring information technology to bear to support organizational needs. Finally, the information management function refers to the planning, design, implementation, decision-making/problem-solving, execution, and control activities required to create and make effective use of an organization's information technologies and information systems. To be effective, both technical information systems professionals and non-technical managers, professionals, staff, and general employees must be simultaneously involved in the information management function.
The over-arching outcome of the course is develop in you the skill, the perspectives, and the confidence that will allow you be an active and effective participant in the information management function/activities, from either the business or the technology side of the fence.