Computing Information Technology: The Human Side

Problems for Office Software Class

Review of Basic Problem Solving Process

• Define the problem

• Identify possible alternative solutions

• Choose the best solution

• Prepare (or identify necessary) documents to execute the plan

• Analyze the results (or proposed results)

File Management

You are the director of User Support Services for a medium-sized ABC Manufacturing Company with only one physical location. You and your subordinates have prepared a multimedia presentation for the Marketing Department. The 400 MB program needs to be delivered to the Marketing Director for approval and use. Plan how to deliver the program to Marketing from your development machines in the IT department.

Assumptions:

• IT has the latest microcomputer hardware and software.

• The company is networked and is an ISP for the Internet.

• The Marketing Department employees are computer literate, and have Pentium III microcomputers purchased in 1999.

• The company runs Windows 2000 as an operating system.

Prepare an operational plan for delivery of the program and send it to me on a floppy disk and a hard copy printout. I will choose two or three and put them in the Forum.

Managing Resource Cuts

Your company is experiencing recent budget cuts for travel and marketing. You have just been informed that there will not be two individuals, but only one, traveling to the New Products and Software Symposium and Trade Show in New York City next week. You have prepared a PowerPoint slide show for your booth in the Exhibition Hall, featuring your newest Human Resource Management and Employee Tracking software program. You now will be the only person manning the booth for the 12 hours a day the Exhibition Hall is open during the five-day symposium. Plan how to cover many curious potential clients' inquiries about your new software, plus maintaining contact with already established clients who own your other software products.

Assumptions:

• The reserved booth is assigned and set up, including power connections and security, by the convention hall management company.

• You are bringing your own laptop computer, the PowerPoint presentation, and a personal projection system.

• All hardcopy brochures, handouts, bulletins, booth backdrop, and so forth are shipped already, and will be set up at your booth by the convention hall management company.

Demonstrate a solution to this problem and present to the class (10 minutes) at the designated due date. Turn in hardcopies of your planned solution. The class will discuss the various team plans and come to a consensus as to the most efficient and practical plan.

Small Business Need

You are the director of Westminster Recreation Center and manage an aquatics program for school age children. You need to develop a way to manage the swimming accomplishments of the participants, and issue certificates of participation when appropriate. The swimmers are divided into age groups in several non-competitive loosely organized "sessions" each year. Six teenage Water Safety Instructors at the center will track accomplishments of the swimmers..

Assumptions:

• The center has adequate computers with hardware and software for employee use.

• The Water Safety Instructors are computer literate, but are by no means software developers.

• The Water Safety Instructors turn in hard-copy printout summaries of swimmer accomplishments to you, in a standardized format, and issue certificates to swimmers at the end of each session.

• No permanent long-term records need to be kept of swimmers and their accomplishments for each session.

• Each Water Safety Instructor has two age groups of swimmers in six sessions a year; each session lasts six weeks.

• Employee turnover for the WSI's is high (25 percent).

  Data:

  Facility Name: Westminster Recreation Center; Westminster, CO

  Swimming Pool length: 25 meters

  Swimmer Age Groups (both boys and girls):	8 and under
  	9–10
  	11–12
  	13–14
  	15–18

  Swimming Strokes and Milestones:

  Free style	200 meters	400 meters	800 meters	1 mile (66 laps)
  Backstroke	"			"
  Breast Stroke	"			"
  Butterfly	"			"
  Individual medley	"			"

Prepare a solution to this problem and give the results to me as before — hard copy and on a disk. I will choose two or three of the best and put them in the Forum.

Project Management Problem

You are the Project Manager for the annual national meeting of District Sales Managers for national retail division of Yeti Mountain Bike Sales. Solution to this problem involves preparing the appropriate documents for the Project Notebook and presenting the plans to the Executive Committee for review and approval.

Assumptions:

• There are 15 district sales managers.

• You have two administrative assistants who can devote part of their time to this project.

• The meeting will cover three days at the corporate headquarters in Boulder, CO.

• You have a budget of $30,000 for the entire project (sales managers cover their own travel and lodging expenses from their division budgets).

• You will need a minimum of:

  • Work breakdown schedule of tasks and roles.

  • A project schedule with roles, tasks, milestones.

  • An itemized budget.

  • Agenda of activities for the meeting.

  • Contracts for organizations whose service you engage.

  • Record of planning notes and important documents.

  • Wrap up report of meeting outcomes, bound and presented to managers at their departure.

Prepare the Project Management Notebook with all materials as complete as you can make them without physically executing the project. The class will serve as the Executive Committee when the Notebook is turned in on the due date. The class will discuss the various team plans and come to a consensus as to the most efficient and pleasing notebook.

IT Desk Problem

You are the coordinator of User Support Systems for the IT Department of a large financial consulting firm. You manage a Help Desk for incoming requests from 3,000 employees in all departments — from CEO to Marketing to Human Resources to Accounting. You need to develop an Office-based Help Desk Scheduler application to handle the recordkeeping for incoming requests, schedule responses to each call in the most expedient manner by a qualified IT user support employee, and record the action taken by the employee and the satisfaction of the end user with the solution provided him/her.

Assumptions:

• The annual performance evaluations of Help Desk employees and the funding received by the IT Department for User Support Services is dependent upon these records.

• The Help Desk operates on a 24–7–363 schedule — with skeleton staff on weekends.

• The records must be accurate and must be retained for a minimum of five years.

• An annotated and categorized log of what action was successful for each problem will be available to Help Desk employees to review before completing their calls.

• The employee that performs the help call is responsible for entering data into the log.

• The company's strategic plan is to double their business within five years.

Plan the solution to this problem and be prepared to present the plan to the Chief Information Office by the appropriate date assigned. Nothing can be executed without the CIO's approval, so completing the Help Desk Schedule application is not required; a well-thought out feasible plan is.

Selective Group Communication

State University has a series of annual scholarship awards for students who meet GPA and total hours requirements. The Office of Academic Affairs (OAA) needs to notify those qualifying individuals to invite them to apply for the various awards. Some of the awards have further gender, ethnicity, or residency requirements. That is, all students do not qualify for all awards. In a general pool, the OAA has an Outlook e-mail system Contact list of State University senior level students who have a 3.2 or better GPA. The list contains only the school e-mail address of each student, in a comma-delimited text file.

Assumptions:

• Every student in the e-mail list qualifies for at least one of the annual awards.

• The school is networked among all departments.

• All of complete official student records are stored in an Oracle database on the university Hitachi mainframe.

• The OAA has permission to access mainframe records for viewing purposes only.

• Written invitations must be issued, using the United States Postal system.

• There are six categories of awards:

  • GPA of 3.6 or better with service and leadership documented

  • Female gender with GPA of 3.5 or better

  • Native American or Hispanic ethnicity, of either gender

  • Documented disability, with GPA of 3.2 or better

  • Colorado students (male or female) who graduated high school from a Metro Denver area secondary school system.

  • Nontraditional students over 28 years of age who are degree seeking.

• An administrative assistant is available to accomplish the communication within a two-week period.

Prepare an operational plan to formally notify each group of students for the appropriate scholarship and invite them to apply by a specific due date. You should define the most expedient solution, since time and resources are limited. Present your plan to the class on the designated date. The class will discuss the most efficient and practical plan, and come to a consensus as to the best solution.