- What’s Inside -
How Has Technology Changed the Way We Do Business - AMP 13 students were surveyed on how technology has changed their organization and here are some of their responses.
Boundaryless Organizations - Learn about this hot organization style and how IT supports it.
Domino Effect - A look at technology that marries Lotus Notes and the internet/intranet world.
IT Faculty Profile - A visit with another intriguing member of the IT faculty.
Manager’s Guide to Y2K Problem - Here is the latest information about a timely problem.
Horror Stories - Computer users beware!!!!.
Software Development Conference - Learn about what’s hot and what’s not in software.
How Has Technology Changed the Way We Do Business?
As part of the "Technology Foundations" lesson, AMP 13 students were surveyed on how technology has changed their organization. Here are some of their responses:
By creating "virtual teams" (teams of subject matter experts linked together electronically) via video-teleconferencing to interact in real-time day-to-day and to address critical mission issues.
By providing a means of storing vast quantities of intelligence information concerning military capabilities, threats, and intentions of foreign countries.
By producing interactive decision support systems for senior- and mid-level managers.
By transforming a traditional map production process into a digital production line from the input of source material to the generation of mapping products.
By eliminating or reducing the re-entry the data, thereby, saving time and reducing error rates.
By revolutionizing how we acquire products and services.
By allowing one to file individual tax returns electronically using a touch-tone phone, a personal computer, a fax machine or an approved commercial tax preparer.
By decreasing secretary work loads by having professionals prepare the drafts or having them use electronic mail in lieu of formal letters.
By allowing employees to telecommute.
By replacing the technical publication library of Navy ships resulting in saving the technician’s time in addition to the savings of money, weight and space.
By allowing an expert tank mechanic in Anniston to give advice to a technician in Bosnia who has a camera mounted on his helmet pointing at key components of the tank.
By breaking through organizational boundaries.
By making the learning process more learner-centric and interactive.
By making us more security conscious since our data is more vulnerable.
By making the process of storing documents slower but reducing the expense and time to retrieve information.
By allowing employees on travel to access e-mail and send and receive documents.
By making tax forms and publications available for widespread distribution.
By alleviating several human errors pertaining to payroll disbursements.
By increasing the ability to pick the right person for a specific job from an automated national manpower pool.
By making personnel more aware of events, issues and happenings occurring not only within their immediate environment but also in other countries and realms.
Boundaryless Organizations and Technology
By Les Pang
Typical problems associated with traditional organizations include lack of flexibility in responding to changing mission needs and a rapidly changing world, poor communication of ideas internally and externally, slow and often inadequate response in satisfying customer requirements, frequent turf battles, and the inability to get things done. One key cause of these problems is the existence of boundaries. There are four types of boundaries as described below.
Vertical - Boundaries between layers within an organization
Horizontal - Boundaries which exist between organization functional units
External - Barriers between the organization and the outside world (customers, suppliers, other government entities, special interest groups, communities)
Geographic - Barriers among organization units located in different countries
How does one overcome these boundaries? We could look at what Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, describes as a boundaryless organization. It is basically one that makes all of these barriers much more permeable than they are now; it loosens barriers and allows information, ideas, resources and energy flow throughout the organization and into others. An organization cannot be completely boundaryless -- there will always be a need to have some hierarchy, functional divisions, geographic boundaries, and limits between organization.
Are You a Boundaryless Leader?
Needed in a boundaryless organization is...
One Who Breaks Down Vertical Boundaries
One Who Breaks Down Horizontal Boundaries
One Who Breaks Down External Boundaries
One Who Breaks Down Geographic Boundaries
One Who Has the Overall Leadership Skills to Make it Happen!
Private Sector Examples
Ikea, an example of a boundaryless company, works closely with suppliers by providing technical assistance, leasing them equipment, and giving advice on bringing production up to world class standards. The company has refined the role of the customer -- minimal number of salespeople, customers cart the goods home and assemble it themselves, provides car carrier racks, tools and instruction including tape measures and clipboards. The result is lower prices for customers and growth for Ikea.
At Saturn, plants are run by semi-autonomous teams of 6-15 people, each of which are responsible for every aspect of their area on the line. Relationship with customer has been redefined as shown by no-pressure sales and no haggling (similar to buying a small gift in a local shop). In addition, suppliers have access to its production schedule.
Wal-Mart approached Proctor and Gamble regarding diaper warehousing and distribution. As part of a cooperative agreement, P&G gained access to Wal-Mart's daily sales information and delivered optimal quantity to each specific store the very next day or as needed .
Getting back to General Electric’s CEO Jack Welch, he believes GE should be a global enterprise -- the body of a classic big company while having the soul of a small company. It should have big-company advantages - reach, strength, and resources -- while having a small-company attributes -- thirst to learn, compulsion to share, and a bias for action. He believes in the demise of "not-invented-here" attitude and learning from ideas coming from great companies. Benefits include meeting the needs of customers today by gaining speed, flexibility, integration and innovation .
Barriers are loosened in a variety of ways. Management needs to foster an open, sharing environment. Communications should be freely allowed within the organization which should lead to the emergence of shared values. The organization should encourage experimentation -- try new processes and technologies to do work better. The rewards system should be revamped to recognize the adapter or implementor of an idea as much as the originator.
Government Examples
Sally Richardson, Federal Health Care Administration, Director of Medicaid Bureau, created a team of employees of managers to de-layer the organization and become more flexible, responsive to changing policies, and provide better service. She allowed former managers to move into policy and project roles without losing compensation or promotional opportunities. She promoted open dialogue about team thinking throughout the organization, encouraged innovative thinking, and promoted empowerment.
The Federal Aviation Administration has a boundaryless view of the customer relationship by providing pilots training in FAA standards and guidelines.
NASA wanted to study global water cycle and its effect on climate variations. They co-located scientists, educators and flight engineers in an interdisciplinary center.
The Role of Information Technology
The role of IT is instrumental in enabling boundaryless structures. "The 21st century leader will need to understand information technology and supply chain management" according Dr. Albert Vicere, Director, Institute for the Study of Organizational Effectiveness. "In re-engineering, information technology acts as an essential enabler." says Michael Hammer, in his book Re-engineering the Corporation.
The following is a list of information technologies which can enable and/or drive new boundaryless organizational forms:
Source: Askenas, Ron. A Boundaryless Organization.
Visit Les Pang's site: http://members.aol.com/lpang10473/ldc_flat.htm
by John Saunders
No, this article isn’t about Van Morrison’s hit single from the ‘70s, theories about communism, or what Professor Bevis will be doing upon retirement. Before we get to the crux of the article, though, I would like you to answer the following questions. Q1. How many pages are on the internet? Q2. How many of those pages look alike? Lets take a brief journey while you think about these questions.
The proliferation of intranets in American organizations has been phenomenal. This should be no surprise. There is a lot of value to having your organizational information and knowledge readily available. And an internet browser (such as Netscape Navigator) seems like a great tool to help you find it. Many already use this tool to find information on the internet. In my opinion, however, if there was ever a case of "Fools rush in ..." this is it. Please recall what you learned in Data Management 101. Along with the collection and dissemination of information comes responsibility. How will your information be structured? Who is going to maintain it? How are you going to control access to the information?
Let’s get back to why I asked you questions about the internet. I would like you to think about the basic structure of the internet. How are all those pages out there organized? Guess what - other than a mass of hypertext links, there isn’t any organization! This is part of the fun and beauty of the system. But how well does this fit your business purposes? How well could you function if every time you needed a telephone number you had to fumble through 150 million pages of paper? Isn’t this why search engines have become an absolute necessity on the web. Think about the time necessary to orient yourself to each new web site you visit, and how someone else’s idea of organization often doesn’t seem like organization at all to you.
Search capability is absolutely essential to effective business functioning. But there is so much more! How about organizing, sorting, classifying, exception reporting, editing, routing, controlling access? Right now the internet and intranets strike out almost completely on these capabilities. To solve these challenges many vendors are mad at work producing products to help deal with the data management challenge. Microsoft has Front Page (http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/), Netscape vends SuiteSpot (http://home.netscape.com/comprod/announce/dss_suit.html), DeltaPoint has Quicksite (http://www. DeltaPoint.com/http://www. deltapoint.com/) and Gradient produces WebCruiser - (http://www.gradient.com/) but regretfully these products fall short in many areas. Their prime target is the webmaster who must attempt to install and link all the pages that are pushed upon him/her by others in the organization.. But what about the end user? Who has the ultimate responsibility for the content, for the creation of the text, graphics, audio & video? And then how do we convert this information to the inter/intranet HTML or other format, and then release into public access? And then primarily, how does the information manager control and potential users manipulate this data?
There is an answer coming to ease the burden for the content provider, the information manager, and the webmaster. It is called Domino. It is the next generation of server software from Lotus (now owned by IBM). Domino establishes a way for the seamless, yet protected integration of intranet and internet data.
Domino provides all the basic functionality now resident in Lotus Notes, e.g., data creation, access control, group work, reporting, replication, forms and views, but uses an underlying internet standard format to store your data. To get a better view of what Domino is all about, visit http://www.infohiway.com/LotusNotes/. What you would see at this location are not just simple links. You will witness "hidden" commands which provide the viewer, whether they are operating from an intranet or on the internet, an opportunity to look at and create views of the data. Keep in mind that the data that you are viewing at this site is all being kept on a Domino server - fully accessible as Lotus Notesbases! Domino maintains a strong firewall and high levels of security, all on a common inter/intranet server.
Domino is the next generation of Lotus Notes server, also known as Notes Server 4.5, now in advanced stages of beta testing. Look for better ways of handling information.
You will soon be able to create your information once and then decide in a relatively seamless manner whether to post it to your intranet, internet pages, or both.
IT Faculty Profile: John Saunders
Background: Born and raised near Pittsburgh. Worked in the mills during college summers. MBTI is INTP with a strong P. Keeping all the J’s (at NDU) happy is hard work. Before NDU, now eight years ago, was employed in finance and software development in the private sector - hospitality, wholesaling, publishing, and legal environments. Also taught for University of Maryland - Europe, and George Washington University.
What I like most about IT: Discovering and learning about new technologies. The ability to roll your own as we have done with wireless, groupware, and now virtual reality. IT is a great frontier.
What I like least about IT: Maintenance.
Greatest Technical Challenge: A toss up - between writing an expert hardware configuration management system for Zenith similar to Digital’s XCON, and teaching computer architecture at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. There weren’t a lot of Eggheads down the street. Actually the toughest challenges are getting the people parts right, i.e., making sure management understands and supports the technical challenges, and that users have been adequately trained.
My vision of IT-enabled-achievement: Providing people with tools to do their own thing. Give them a chance, and people will be very enthusiastic and creative about finding solutions to problems.
Other interests: Who has time for hobbies? Relaxes by taking long walks with the dog, playing the piano (R&R/Jazz - career as a rock star ended early) and traveling with the wife.
A Manager’s Guide to the Year 2000 Problem
By Paul Flanagan
The end of the 1900’s will occur precisely on January 1, 2000. There is nothing magical or mysterious about this simple fact. What happens next in terms of computer clocks constitutes a serious management challenge, hopefully one that has already been successfully accomplished. What happens between now and the turn of the century will severely impact organizations that rely on automated information systems, as well as the managers, employees, and customers of those organizations.
Many analysts have predicted that January 1, 2000 will cause upwards of 90% of the current information systems to fail completely, or at least generate erroneous, possibly harmful information. While no one truly knows the true magnitude of the problem (one estimate projects $600 million will be spend in the U.S. alone) most Information Systems managers will spend an tremendous amount of time and effort addressing the Year 2000 problem. These managers will be thinking a lot in the years preceding 2000 about solutions, evaluating choices, where to find the necessary resources to deal with this problem, and how to live with consequences. The issue has been described by James Martin and Associates as "technology trivial" but "managerially significant." The Year 2000 might possibly be the most significant event ever faced by the information industry.
What is the Problem?
Most legacy information systems were written prior to the induction of the concepts of software development as an engineering process. As such the emphasis was on producing the information that the end-user wanted. Little thought was given to anything except the immediate delivery of the requested system. Many of the original developers assumed that these programs would be used only for a short period of time. These assumptions in light of the Year 2000 problem have proven to be short-sighted. These legacy programs usually written in Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) are products of the prevailing logic of the time that they were written. Here are some examples: (1) In the period of 1950 until around 1980, hardware and machine time was considered expensive, while programmer’s time was considered relatively less expensive. Therefore, the prevailing business logic was programmer time should be traded for machine time. Hours of programmers times were spent to shave seconds of machine time from production runs. This practice resulted in programs filled with tersely written, highly creative solutions. These types of solutions were prized, almost badges of honor amongst programmers. The resulting programs are efficient, but difficult to understand and even more difficult to modify. In reference to the Year 2000 problem, it is very hard to determine what effect the turn of the century will have on these types of programs.
Only in the last decade have computer memory and mass storage been considered inexpensive. Legacy systems do not reflect this change of thinking. In order to minimize memory and storage used, the year was stored in only 2 bytes instead of 4 bytes. For example, November 14, 1996 would be stored as: 961014. To calculate an age of someone born on December 7, 1941 the formula is current date - birthday date. If this formula 961014 - 411207 generates the answer 54 years, 10 month, 7 days. After January 1, 2000, the same formula could generate the person’s age as -41. The net effect of this type of errors can be comical (in the case of 95-year-old people receiving notices to apply for kindergarten) to the catastrophic if a banking institution can not process transactions because the payment due date is prior to the date of transaction or if a weapons systems fails to function properly.
The Year 2000 problem is large because almost all legacy programs will be effected. It is tedious because it will require information systems staff to examine every program and ferret out the potential problems. It is expensive because software tools and extra programmer could possible be needed to be ready by 2000. The Year 2000 problem is predicted to be as troublesome to solve as a major infestation of a malicious virus.
Harsh Implications
The Year 2000 problem is unlike most business problems. It can not be mitigated or negotiated away. Some simple, but straightforward facts are: (1) The Year 2000 will arrive on time whether you are ready or not; (2) the Year 2000 solutions will curtail new developments, as your time and resources will be taken up by this effort; (3) both in the government and in industry, there will be little (if any) new money devoted to this problem; (4) this problem is technically trivial, but managerially difficult.
What Can Be Done
There are three keys to success: (1) Risk Management - balancing the money, time , effort needed to eradicate the problem with the potential threat of mistakes, (2) Awareness - many people have still not addressed the problem, (3) Project Management - the year 2000 problem manifests itself in many ways, the real work of rooting out this data and programming errors will be done on the project level.
The most useful advise being offered is: (1) Inventory your programs, know your data and your interfaces. Scope the problem, make an estimate of the time, talent, tools, and resources you will need. Parse the problem, is it data, programming, bridges or firewalls that are causing or solving your problems. Examine the problems and solutions on a case by case basis. Consider options - vendors, tools or straight hard work, what is best in each particular circumstance. Test, Test , Test - some say 60% of the cost in time, talent and money will be in testing. This makes a slogan: InSPECT.
Another method of dealing with the Year 2000 problem is to change your systems. Some vendors feel the Year 2000 situation is an excellent opportunity to scrap outdated systems and methods. Many organizations are opting to change from legacy systems to newer client/server technologies. While this strategy has a basis of logic, it is also filled with risk. Converting from an established system to a new system is inherently risky, it should be approached with all deliberate caution. Be advised new does not necessarily mean immune to the Year 2000 issue. Seek contractual assurances if you attempt to acquire your Year 2000 solution.
Summary
The reality of the Year 2000 situation is: (1) It is real, (2) it will be expensive, (3) there is no single solution, (4) it will take a lot of tedious work, (5) the more your systems are interrelated the more complex the problem. Finally, the time to get started was yesterday.
Here are some interesting Y2k internet sites:
Mitre Corporation: http://www.mitre.org/research/y2k
GSA: http://www.itpolicy.gsa.gov
Veterans Affairs: http://www.fedcenter.com/vaaustin/
Amoco: http://www.amoco.com
Les Pang's site: http://members.aol.com/lpang10473/y2k.htm
Horror Stories by John Saunders
All those of you running Pointcast should be aware that this program (and many others of a similar vein) is using your IP address to do two-way communication. This opens your machine up to considerable compromise. Unlike Netscape Navigator, which provides you with a warning when you are transmitting data outside the confines of HTTP, programs like Pointcast are memory resident. Although I am not suggesting that they are doing it, Pointcast could, if they desired, do something like record all your keystrokes or do a survey of what is on your hard drive, or even transmit the contents of your hard drive to another location.
I heard another horror story of which web page managers may wish to take note. A division of a government agency had spent many man-months and over a hundred thousand dollars developing sophisticated Javascript web pages. But they did not have a local mirror site. The only copy of their pages were maintained by the web site provider on the provider’s premises. And there was no provision in their contract with the provider as to ownership and possession of those specific bits. People in the agency began seeing their material show up on web pages not associated with the agency. When called about it, the provider claimed that since they had developed the material, they would do with it as they please, and that those specific bits belonged to them. Further, if their contract was not renewed, they would simply delete them. Irrespective of the legal issues, and who is right or wrong, the agency is now over a barrel. Those pages are essential to the operation of the agency, and access to them has now been compromised . The lesson to be learned is that web data is no different than data contained in traditional databases. It must be properly managed and great care paid to contractual relationships with web providers.
Highlights of the Software Development Conference
Washington, D.C., October 1996
The emphasis of the conference was clearly on the World Wide Web, Java and ActiveX. The speeches, tutorials, meetings and vendor booths all focused on these key technologies. Some of the more interesting comments and opinions made at the conference are listed below:
2. Minimize the number of technologies that need to interoperate with other technologies.
3. Don’t make success dependent on competencies that you don’t currently have.
4. If you have to make a irrevocable decision (which may cost you your job), make sure that payback is immediate.
5. Practice on doing work fast.
6. Get up on new technologies quickly.
2. Overshoot goals
3. Don’t get caught up in details in a pilot project
4. Let your imagination roam
5. Get a vision on how the system will work
6. In web design, get people with "content" skills (over people concerned about aesthetics)
-- Info Tech Talk--
Visit us at http://www.ndu.edu/irmc
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Editor Les Pang, e-mail: pangl@ndu.edu, (202) 685-2060, http://members.aol.com/lpang10473/default.htm
Graphics Designer Jim Looney