Individual project

INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS

I-1: HYPERLINK \l “Architecture” Enterprise Architecture Plan (Page 3)

I-2: HYPERLINK \l “TechMgmt” Technology Management Plan (Page 10)

I-3: HYPERLINK \l “Innovation” Technology Innovation Project (Page 17)

Individual Projects

Individual Project I-1

1. Title

Enterprise Architecture Plan

2. Introduction

Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees. The parent company is headquartered in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are located throughout the United States.

The mission of the corporation is to bring the best products and services to people and businesses throughout the world so they can then realize their full potential.

The corporate vision guides every aspect of their business to achieve sustainable, quality growth:

Productivity: Be a highly effective, lean and fast-moving organization.

People: Be a great place to work where people are inspired to achieve their maximum potential.

Partners: Nurture a winning network of customers and suppliers, together we create mutual, enduring value.

Responsible: Be a responsible citizen that makes a difference through ethical behavior.

Revenue: Maximize long-term return while being mindful of our overall responsibilities.

The company’s culture is reflected in their corporate values:

Leadership: Courage to shape a better future.

Collaboration: Leverage collective intelligence.

Accountability: Own up to your responsibility.

Passion: Committed to excellence.

Diversity: Provide new perspectives into our business.

Quality: We will want quality as part of our brand.

The corporation consists of the parent company and the following subsidiaries:

Healthcare – Suburban Independent Clinic, Inc. (medical services)

Finance – Largo Capital (financial services)

Retail – Rustic Americana (arts and crafts), Super-Mart (office products)

Government Services – Government Security Consultants (information security)

Automotive – New Breed (electric cars)

Systems Integration – Solutions Delivery, Inc. (communications)

Media Design – Largo Media (website and app design)

The organization is headed by CEO Tara Johnson who completed her Master’s degree at UMUC and eager to make worthwhile improvements to the corporation. She rose through the ranks of Largo Corporation starting with systems integration, then retail and her last position before becoming CEO was in finance.

The corporation is in a highly competitive environment so the CEO wants savvy employees at many levels to make wise judgments and take an aggressive approach and deliver results towards improving the bottom line yet maintaining corporate social responsibility.

Corporate Issues

Ms. Johnson is aware of the many enterprise wide problems Largo Corporation and its subsidiaries are facing which include:

The complexity of IT is constantly increasing

Many disparate systems do not interoperate among the parent company and the subsidiaries and among the business units

Many duplicate systems across different business units which perform the same function

Each part of the organization has their own unique technology standards

It is a major challenge to integrate technology into the daily operations of the organization

Because of these problems, IT systems in the corporation often failed to meet organizational goals and objectives.

A Potential Solution

A few months ago, Ms. Johnson attended a symposium for CEOs and other senior executives and learned about enterprise architecture and how it can enable business-IT alignment and agility. Upon her return, she floated the idea with the board of directors, her direct reports and vetted the idea with IT Operations head Mr. Sculley. With strong support from the board and Mr. Sculley, Ms. Johnson created an enterprise architect position reporting directly to her with dotted line reporting to all area heads.

You have been handpicked to serve as the new Chief Enterprise Architect for Largo Corporation. Your assignment is to craft an enterprise architecture vision and explain how the vision enables business goals. Among other things, you need to justify the implementation of an enterprise architecture at Largo Corporation.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “an enterprise architecture (EA) is an integral part of the IT investment management process. An EA provides a clear and comprehensive picture of the structure of an entity. This picture consists of snapshots of its current and proposed technical environments, and a roadmap for transitioning from the current to the target environment. When properly managed, an EA can help optimize the relationships among an organization’s business operations and the IT infrastructure and applications supporting them.”

You will learn about the EA concept, various EA frameworks and apply one to the Largo Corporation. You will learn how to migrate the corporation to a well-defined enterprise architecture vision. As part of the migration effort you will need to identify the governance structure for the architecture.

As an enterprise architect, your ability to understand and apply enterprise architecture principles and methodology enables the organization to achieve a business-IT aligned, agile and scalable IT asset. This in turn enables the organization to leverage IT as a competitive strategy to respond quickly to changing market conditions in a global economy. Additionally, you must be able to communicate effectively (oral and written) to executive level management in a non-jargon, executive level manner. This learning demonstration is designed to strengthen these essential knowledge, skills, and abilities needed by enterprise architects.

3. Steps to Completion

1) Understand the Enterprise Architecture Concept

You need to first understand the foundational concepts of an EA including what it is and why it is needed. Conduct research to gain anunderstanding of the concept and determine how it might apply to Largo Corporation.

An informative reference book is “An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture: Third Edition” by Scott A. Bernard (start at Pg. 29). HYPERLINK “https://books.google.com/books?id=OkNMFI3_L_YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=enterprise+architecture&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WttEVc7mOoWhNsSMgMgG&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ” \l “v=onepage&q=enterprise%20architecture&f=false” https://books.google.com/books?id=OkNMFI3_L_YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=enterprise+architecture&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WttEVc7mOoWhNsSMgMgG&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=enterprise%20architecture&f=false

The role of an enterprise architect is captured well in this article: HYPERLINK “https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb945098.aspx”https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb945098.aspx

Deliverable: Prepare an interim report for corporate executives explaining the enterprise architecture concept and discuss its applicability to Largo Corporation. Minimum 400 words and include at least 3 references. (An interim report will be consolidated to a final deliverable in a later step.)

2) Review EA Frameworks

Research various enterprise architecture frameworks. Examples include The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), and the Zachman Framework. Compare and contrast these frameworks. A good starting point is this article by Roger Sessions:HYPERLINK “https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx” https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx

A variety of frameworks are also mentioned in this source (parting on Page 11): HYPERLINK “https://books.google.com/books?id=Fs5bMNBXLEMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=enterprise+architecture+frameworks&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fdxEVZ32HYqXNtitgXg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ” \l “v=onepage&q=enterprise%20architecture%20frameworks&f=false” https://books.google.com/books?id=Fs5bMNBXLEMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=enterprise+architecture+frameworks&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fdxEVZ32HYqXNtitgXg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=enterprise%20architecture%20frameworks&f=false

Deliverable: Compare and contrast at four different major architectural frameworks based on various attributes and report your findings in a summary table. Include brief descriptions and sources of your information. Include at least 3 references.

3) Understand the TOGAF Framework

For this project we will use the TODAF framework architectural framework described starting at the Introduction ( HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/chap01.html” http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/arch/chap01.html).Use the “Next>>>” link (upper right hand corner and lower right hand corner) to advance to “2. Core Concepts”. Throughout this website, feel free to explore any hyperlinks.

Next read “TOGAF as an Enterprise Architecture Framework”: HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap02.html”http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap02.html

4) Execute the preliminary phase of the architecture development process.

Start by reviewing the Architecture Development Method (ADM) beginning at: ( HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap03.html” http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap03.html)

Walk through the Preliminary Phase ( HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap04.html”http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap04.html).

Deliverables for this step include: (a) Define the architectural framework in the form of a diagram specific to Largo. (b) Identify at architectural principles you feel are applicable to Largo Corporation. (c) Create the future vision diagram for the company. Details on each deliverable are defined below.

(a) The framework diagram needs to be organization-specific. This architecture vision should take into account the “corporate issues” identified in the Introduction of this learning activity. You are free to make assumptions and hypothetical scenarios behind your architectural vision.

Examples of frameworks can be found at: HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html”http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap37.html

(b) Provide architecture principles for the following domains: business, data, application, and technology for Largo Corporation. Examples can be found at: HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap29.html” \l “tag_30_06″http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap29.html#tag_30_06

Your principles should try to address the problems identified in the Introduction section of this learning activity.

Identify at least 3 principles for each domain and explain its applicability to Largo Corporation.

To document your principles, you may use the template at: HYPERLINK “https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?catalogno=i093″https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?catalogno=i093 (You will need to set up an account if you have not previously). Download the zip file and open: TOGAF_9_Templates > Deliverables > Architecture Principles and open the Word document.

(c) To define the future vision, you can create a solution concept or a value chain diagram. This is an important step that articulates your perspective of the future architecture of Largo Corporation. Include an explanation for your vision including why it is appropriate for the company.

Templates that you may use are downloadable from: HYPERLINK “https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?catalogno=i093” https://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/jsp/publications/PublicationDetails.jsp?catalogno=i093 (You will need to set up an account). Download the zip file and open: TOGAF_9_Templates > Artifacts > Core Diagrams > Architecture Vision and open the two PowerPoint presentations.

5) Prepare a Migration Plan

Research migration planning resources such as: HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap12.html”http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap12.html

Another way to articulate the migration plan is through an Enterprise Direction Diagram – a template is shown at:

HYPERLINK “http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS6RBX_11.4.3/com.ibm.sa.bpr.doc/topics/c_Enterprise_Direction_diag.html?lang=en” http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS6RBX_11.4.3/com.ibm.sa.bpr.doc/topics/c_Enterprise_Direction_diag.html?lang=enHYPERLINK “http://www-01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS6RBX_11.4.3/com.ibm.sa.bpr.doc/topics/c_Enterprise_Direction_diag.html?lang=en” 01.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS6RBX_11.4.3/com.ibm.sa.bpr.doc/topics/c_Enterprise_Direction_diag.html?lang=en

Another version of the diagram is found at: HYPERLINK “https://www.flickr.com/photos/39587048@N07/3642403169/”https://www.flickr.com/photos/39587048@N07/3642403169/

The FBI’s IT Strategic Plan also contains one (see the diagram under “Vision”): HYPERLINK “http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/itb/it-strategic-plan-2010-2015” http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/itb/it-strategic-plan-2010-2015

Deliverable: Outline a plan and provide an Enterprise Direction Diagram to address migrating to the target architecture as defined in the architectural vision. In other words, this plan should address how the organization will move from the “as-is” to the “to-be” state.

Minimum length is 400 words.

g) Define the Architecture Governance Process and Structure

Architecture governance is defined as the set of activities an organization uses to manage and control its enterprise architectures and other architectures. This process institutionalizes decision making and ensures accountability. More at: HYPERLINK “http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap26.html” http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf8-doc/arch/chap26.html

Research this topic and for the Largo Corporation enterprise architecture, define the “who”, “what” and “where” associated with this process. For example, who is responsible for governance (e.g., establish an architectural governance board?), what will be managed and controlled and where in the organization will controls be applied.

Deliverable: Summarize your findings in an interim architectural governance document. Minimum length is 400 words.

6) Communicate the Architectural Vision.

The final deliverable is a narrated PowerPoint presentation that summarizes all of the key findings and recommendations from the previous steps. The target audience is the CEO and other executives in the organization. Be sure to address the following information:

– Introduction – Describe the issues facing the corporation then define an enterprise architecture and explain why it is needed for Largo Corporation. Provide a short summary of the architectural frameworks and explain why TOGAF is applicable to Largo Corporation. (From Steps 1, 2)

– Architecture Vision: Describe the architectural framework, architectural principles and future vision specific to the corporation. (From Step 4)

– Migration Plan: Outline the steps needed to transition from the current state to the desired state (From Step 5)

– Architectural governance structure: Provide highlights from the architectural governance document. (From Step 6)

The presentation should consist of 10-15 slides. It should include audio narration (directions are found at: HYPERLINK “https://support.office.com/en-au/article/Add-narration-to-a-presentation-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c”https://support.office.com/en-au/article/Add-narration-to-a-presentation-0b9502c6-5f6c-40ae-b1e7-e47d8741161c). The narration should also be captured in the slide notes.

As an alternate method of delivery, you can create a video using YouTube Capture ( HYPERLINK “https://www.youtube.com/capture”https://www.youtube.com/capture) or a similar tool.

4. Deliverables

Interim Report on the EA concept

Summary matrix on architectural frameworks

Architectural framework for Largo Corporation

Architectural principles

Future vision diagram

Migration plan

Architecture governance process and structure

Architectural vision final presentation

Create a folder to hold all of your deliverables.

Title your files using this protocol: Lastname_FirstInitial_I-1_AssignmentName_Date.

Please zip (compress) the folder containing all of your files and submit the zipped file in the Assignments area.

In lieu of submitting the presentation, you may provide a link to your presentation file.

5. Rubrics

Criteria	Weight	Score
Define the enterprise architecture concept and identify key architectural frameworks used in practice	20
Formulate an architectural framework for a given organization and identify applicable architectural principles relevant for that organization	20
Design and develop an enterprise architecture vision that accommodates components of the enterprise	30
Create a migration strategy in transforming an enterprise architecture	10
Evaluate the role of architectural governance in managing enterprise systems	10
Exhibit communication skills	10
Total	=SUM(ABOVE)100

Individual Project I-2

1. Title

Technology Management Plan

2. Introduction

You have been selected to be the acting CIO for a subsidiary of Largo Corporation called Rustic Americana. Its primary products include arts and crafts that reflect the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. It specializes in direct marketing and sales through its call center. Sales are through a web store, a brick and mortar store, and a direct mail catalogue. All services are housed under one roof that include warehousing, order fulfillment, shipping, corporate management and operations, and the call center. The success of the company hinges on its eye-catching direct mail catalogue and the unique product line.

Unfortunately, annual sales have declined over the years due largely due to internal issues. The previous CIO was terminated some say due to incompetence primarily related to the underperforming call center. In addition, speculation swirled around the activities of the CIO. He was often absent from the building. He secluded himself behind the closed door of his office. Associated rumors mounted, and it was believed that he was running a consulting business on company time. When the Rustic Americana CEO asked him about this during a formal review, the CIO answered that it was a weekend hobby that kept him abreast of emerging technologies. The CEO asked him if one of their competitors was a client and he vehemently denied the accusation. She was certain that the CIO was not being entirely truthful with her.

Call Center Operations

Managing a call center demands a wide range of skills including managerial, troubleshooting, patience and being cool under pressure. Knowledge of computer and communications skills is helpful but most call centers have a technical support division. The call center manager isPrisha Khan – she has been in the job for about 2 months.

The customer service representative (CSR) in the call center responds to a call for product. On the customer management system (CMS), the CSRcollects and directly enters customer information; on a separate inventory management system (IMS), the CSR looks up the product, and verifies if the warehouse has it in stock. If it does, the order is entered on the CMS, and the CSR decreases the inventory on the IMS. On the CMS, the CSRcreates an order fulfillment ticket that is automatically shuttled to the warehouse processing clerk who prints it and then generates the shipping label. The shipping label is prepared through a web-based system through either UPS or USPS, which also produces a tracking number used by both the company and the customer. The processing clerk enters the shipping costs and tracking number into the CMS. The customer is billed when the order ships.

The warehouse crew uses bar code scanners to track merchandise; once the order is selected, it moves along a conveyor to a shipping clerk who packages the order, affixes the shipping label, scans the bar code, and places the package into a bin for delivery pick-up. The final scan automatically enters the dollar amounts into the system for billing.

An old UNIX system is used to manage inventory. Data input clerks entered information on new merchandise into it, CSRs referred to it for product data, and if the product was on hand, it produced an order processing form which was sent to the warehouse for processing. The CSRcould reduce the inventory through the terminal on their desk. The problem they experienced was a refresh rate on volatile inventory. It was a common occurrence that a customer would be told the product would ship when it was in fact depleted by other CSRs.

There were conflicting views on the party responsible for upgrading the systems. The former CIO believed the call center manager needed to take the lead on upgrading operations, while the call center manager complained that this was an IT problem and she could not tolerate downtime. To add to the fray, the Chief Financial Officer balked at the cost associated with this investment. The CEO did not feel the urgency and leaned to the CFO for advice.

Staffing the call center is the responsibility of the call center manager. Ms. Khan uses past volume experience to make sure there were sufficientCSRs on hand. She kept a list of “on-call” CSRs for unanticipated business. Her staffing limit was the number of stations with computer access to the servers. The call center uses a Cisco Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone system. The phone system runs on two standalone servers — one for call routing and the other for voicemail. There is a dedicated toll free number into the center, and the system is programmed with an auto-attendant to direct calls. The volume of calls is a problem, and the number of lines is less than the number of agents available to take calls during high volume periods. This is because there is a per-trunk monthly service charge and the call center cannot adjust the number of trunks based on periodic demand. When the caller is placed in queue, the standard practice is to limit the length of the average call to six rings. The phone system requires a local coaxial cable Internet service to supply broadband. Phones are connected to the network architecture using standard Cat5 copper cabling which routes phone traffic to the call center.

Under this approach, there have been issues with “quality of service.” The former CIO was fond of saying “problems with the cable company” when things went wrong. There was no effort to track downtime. During these “downtimes” the entire call center becomes idle and revenue is lost. Because the Internet is tied to the same cable service, web services were also down. The Rustic Americana CEO felt that the lack of access discouraged new customers, but no data was collected to indicate a correlation between downtimes and sales decline.

Inside the building there is an application server, a server for Microsoft Outlook email, the web server, and the typical complement of routers and switches. The former CIO used a variety of hardware from different vendors. When broadband cable services are up, bandwidth is not a problem, except when the former CIO allowed employees to stream movies during their breaks to boost morale. Employees routinely used their workstations to check personal email, and to manage their social networking accounts. There was a problem with one employee posting unflattering comments about the company that resulted in a severe reprimand.

The data systems for the call center are setup as follows. The center has two data servers. One data server has a UNIX operating system, and it runs Oracle database technology. The second server is a Microsoft operating system, and it runs SQL database technology. The two data servers are accessed via 40 workstations in the call center. It is staffed 24/7 but is closed on major holidays. The call center also contains 10 additional older workstations, which are used by data input clerks to update inventory when ordered and upon arrival this inventory was verified and bar code tagged with local stock inventory labels.

CSRs use a “homegrown” customer support application developed in house which uses a generic Oracle Forms interface. The former CIO did not believe in “bells and whistles” of modern Customer Resource Management (CRM) systems — besides, the Director of Marketing did not understand the value of CRM, the CFO was not persuaded to make the software and hardware investments, and the Rustic Americana CEO held stereotypical, non-strategic views of customers. The inability to do their required work was a constant complaint of agents. Moreover, there is no technology infrastructure in place to support mobile computing such as staff use of tablets or (more critical) a wireless interface on bar code scanners used in the warehouse.

Your Role as Acting CIO

You should frame your work around understanding the mechanics of enterprise technology management beyond the need to specifically recommend the replacement of antiquated yet functional systems. You should strive for an alignment of technology with the business needs.

You have been asked by the Corporate CEO to fix the problems created by the former CIO’s perceived mismanagement of the IT operations and resources. In particular, you need to address the numerous complaints about the call center regarding its poor service such as delayed shipping and failure to notify when a product is out of stock.

The CEO asked that a plan be prepared and presented for effectively managing the company’s IT operations – specifically its call center. Within Rustic Americana, there is a Chief Financial Officer, a Director of Marketing, a Direct Sales Director and the usual departments. You are the “acting” CIO, and as such, you have your own staff of ten which includes an assistant who handles staff management and equipment orders, a network engineer for each of the three critical systems, a systems analyst, a web server programmer, and four desktop support technicians.

This learning activity focuses what it takes to manage technical operations. You will learn about creating reliable feedback mechanisms for difficulties at all levels of enterprise Information Technology interface. This includes timely discovery of technology related issues, resolution of these issues, creating a culture of trust and dependence, informing staff of your activities, and developing strategic plans for reducing bottlenecks in the future.

Understanding technology management is important to an IT professional because in this environment, as would be true of most corporate environments, computer-based information systems are at the core of an efficient and competitive service delivery. Effective leadership requires the identification of problems, the resolution of those problems, an eye on the future of the corporation and its profit, and transparency through communication with peers and subordinates.

3. Steps to Completion

1) Analyze the Situation

First review and analyze the business and IT operations of the call center. Break down the entire process into smaller parts and analyze these parts. If necessary draw a sketch.

In general, here are some typical questions one should consider as part of the analysis:

What is the business model for the corporation?

Where is technology strong? Where is it weak?

How do we manage capacity both in terms of our computer system’s capacity (and response time and fault tolerance) and our staffing capacity (does the work performed full occupy the expertise for which it is paid?).

What is our sustainability policy?

What is our technology innovation strategy?

What is our level of contract support? How are contracts evaluated for their full value to the efficiency of the corporation?

How are problems solved within the corporation?

Next identify key issues and challenges. Beyond technical concerns, there are also managerial issues that need to be addressed.

Deliverable: Capture this information in an issue matrix which is a table that lists, categorizes and prioritizes these problems (High, Medium, and Low), that assigns responsibility for the problem to internal staff, to contract support, or to others (specify these individuals) and contain other information you feel relevant. This will be shown to management so they will readily identify and understand the key concerns. Use your creativity.

2) Identify Best Practices

Research current best practices relating to technology management practices including operational improvement approaches. You can start with these U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) information:

HYPERLINK “http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-38/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-38.pdf”http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-38/pdf/GAOREPORTS-T-AIMD-97-38.pdf

HYPERLINK “http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/leading_practices_information_technology_management/issue_summary”http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/leading_practices_information_technology_management/issue_summary

HYPERLINK “http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663051.pdf” http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663051.pdf

Also, key management best practices are listed in Chapter 2 of this reference: HYPERLINK “https://books.google.com/books?id=49OC_fPnOhcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=management+best+practices&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nz5FVZWOGsengwShlIDQBA&ved=0CF8Q6AEwCTge%23v=onepage&q=management%20best%20practices&f=false” https://books.google.com/books?id=49OC_fPnOhcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=management+best+practices&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Nz5FVZWOGsengwShlIDQBA&ved=0CF8Q6AEwCTge#v=onepage&q=management%20best%20practices&f=false

Also identify people management skills needed to have an effective operation. You can begin with this link: HYPERLINK “http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2014/06/09/6-tips-for-managing-people-who-are-hard-to-manage/”http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2014/06/09/6-tips-for-managing-people-who-are-hard-to-manage/

Understand ethical requirements for individuals in an organization. You can review what is in our textbook. Here is an article about the subject:

HYPERLINK “https://www.aitp.org/news/93013/How-Ethical-Theories-Apply-to-IT-Professionals.htm” https://www.aitp.org/news/93013/How-Ethical-Theories-Apply-to-IT-Professionals.htm

Deliverable: Prepare a best practices report that addresses the key findings from this step. This will be shown to corporate management. Minimum length: 400 words.

3) Select Applicable Operational Improvements

You are to identify what is needed for managing the call center. You use all of your staff as a team to identify solutions (Note: you may request for new positions on your staff but you cannot exceed your current number of slots).

You have a sense of the problems; now document the best practices which, if implemented, generate a computing environment more stable, reliable and innovative and help in resolving the challenges you have set as top priorities facing your corporation.

Specifically, identify needed operational improvements applicable to Rustic Americana’s call center with a set of recommendations. Among other approaches, explore the use of ITIL to provide customer-centric IT services. Here is a good starting resource: HYPERLINK “http://www.best-management-practice.com/gempdf/itsmf_an_introductory_overview_of_itil_v3.pdf” http://www.best-management-practice.com/gempdf/itsmf_an_introductory_overview_of_itil_v3.pdf

Here is an introduction to call centers: HYPERLINK “https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZdG1qF2XvYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=call+center+management&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TUFFVY_jHomoNvemgAg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAg%23v=onepage&q=call%20center%20management&f=false” https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZdG1qF2XvYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=call+center+management&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TUFFVY_jHomoNvemgAg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=call%20center%20management&f=false

Also, be sure to address ethical behavior based on concerns raised in this learning demonstration. This has been a major concern in Largo Corporation because of recent unethical corporate practices that has been in the news recently.

Also address needs for the support, renewal, and sustainability of a call center technology. Be sure to specify effective day-to-day practices needed to manage operations.

Deliverable: Develop an operational improvement report that summaries the key requirements discussed above. Minimum length: 600 words.

4) Document Findings and Recommendations

Document key findings and recommendations in a presentation to your executive team (e.g., CEO, CFO, and Director of Marketing). Thispresentation should document the issues and solutions identified earlier.

Deliverable: Final presentation

As an alternate method of delivery, you can create a video using YouTube Capture ( HYPERLINK “https://www.youtube.com/capture”https://www.youtube.com/capture) or a similar tool.

4. Deliverables

Issue matrix

Best practices report

Operational improvement report

Final presentation

Create a folder to hold all of your deliverables.

Title your files using this protocol: Lastname_FirstInitial_I-2_AssignmentName_Date.

Please zip (compress) the folder containing all of your files and submit the zipped file in the Assignments area.

In lieu of submitting the presentation, you may provide a link to your presentation file.

5. Rubrics

Criteria	Weight (%)	Score
Identify and analyze issues prevalent in a technical environment	20
Create a strategy for the management oversight of enterprise technology resources including the IT infrastructurereflecting best practices	30
Identify operational solutions to issues in a technical environment	30
Apply ethical principles when determining actions	10
Exhibit communication skills	10
Total	=SUM(ABOVE)100

Individual Project I-3

1. Title

Technology Innovation Project

2. Introduction

Background of the Corporation

Largo Corporation is a major multinational conglomerate corporation which specializes in a wide array of products and services. These products and services include healthcare, finance, retail, government services, and many more. The annual revenue is about $750 million and it has about 1,000 employees. The parent company is located in Largo, Maryland and its subsidiaries are headquartered throughout the United States.