Forretningsprocesser og organisation (Autumn 2018)

Abstract

Kurset har til formål at give de studerende værktøjer til at analysere forretningsprocesser og kunne re-designe dem så de passer med en organisatorisk forretningsstrategi. Kurset fokuserer på at analysere og evaluere hvordan en given forretningsstrategi kan supporteres af IT og hvordan den teknologiske potentialer kan påvirke forretningsstrategien. Kurset indeholder grundlæggende teori, begreber og modeller for at kunne forstå forretnings modeller og organisatoriske setups i forhold til IT-relaterede udfordringer. Kurset vil gennemgå en række relevante værktøj, modeller for at relatere og evaluere IT-baserede behov, muligheder og udfordringer. I kurset arbejder studerende sammen en organisation for at identificere strategiske IT-baserede behov og ud fra denne lave en business case i forhold til en specifik IT-relateret forretningsudfordring.

At this course students learn how to analyze business processes and redesign these to align with organizational business strategy. The course will survey a wide range of tools, models and methods for mapping and evaluating business strategic IT needs, possibilities and challenges. Students are expected to work in groups with an organization to identify its strategic IT needs and to create a business case report related to a specific IT-related business challenge. It is the project group’s responsibility to find an organization and a project theme.

The course focuses on analyzing and evaluating how a given business strategy can be supported by information technology (IT) and how technological potential can impact a business strategy. Acquiring an IT system can have serious consequences for a company, both on the strategic level (e.g., business models), as well as on the organizational level (e.g., business processes and employees). The course covers the basic theory, concepts and models for understanding business models and organisational set up, IT-related challenges and their impact on organizational performance, alignment of suggested solutions with business goals, and roll out strategies. These will be supplemented with techniques and approaches for designing IT solutions found within the Scandinavian tradition of system development. 

Description

Software developers are typically developing software that is intended for a specific organisation and which needs to be aligned with the business strategy and organizational culture. It is therefore important the students are capable of analyzing, mapping and evaluating business strategic IT needs, possibilities and challenges, as well as taking the management of change into account in their proposed solution and implementation plan. The course consequently tie together the three corners of the ITU triangle.

The student will gain experience with:

1. Integrating Business, IT and organizational needs and aspects when addressing a real life problem in a real company.
   
2. Writing a business plan. The plan describes  one or more suggested solutions and the financials, organizational impact and strategic fit of each as well as a recommendation. The business plan is the decision basis for the company on how to move forward to solve the problem.
   

In several cases student projects in this course have lead to strategic IT-projects being implemented in the company.

The course builds on the MUST method. This methodology embraces most company specific methods, and guest lecturers from companies have been able to easily map their internal method and tool set for business plans and pre-projects to the MUST method.

Formal prerequisites

Familiarity with project management similar to what is achieved in the course Systemudvikling og projektorganisering

Intended learning outcomes

Efter kurset skal den studerende være i stand til:

• Select and use appropriate tools and techniques for investigating business strategies and organizational practices, and be able to argue for the choice of tools and techniques.
• Identify, analyze and describe existing business model(s) and IT-strategy of an organization.
• Identify, analyze and describe existing organizational practices and business processes of an organization.
• Identify the business impact and the impact on organizational performance of a given IT-related issue or challenge that an organization may be facing.
• Develop and describe a business case which describes the current situation and provides solid foundation for decision making in relation to the proposed solution(s).
• Use relevant models to describe the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed solution(s), including effects on the organization.
• Apply theoretical concepts and approaches to critically reflect upon the organizational practices, the business case as well as the models and techniques used to create the business case.

Ordinary exam

Exam type:
D: Written report with oral defence, external (7-trinsskala)
Exam description:
D22: Aflevering med mundtlig eksamen suppleret af aflevering., (7-scale, external exam) At the end of the course there will be an oral exam based on a group project report and an individual reflection report. The projects are conducted in groups of 6 students. The topic of the project must be based upon a company’s practical problem, which must be illuminated using the methods and techniques discussed throughout the course. The grade is an overall assessment of the project, the individual reflection report and the examination performance. Scope of the business case report: Max 10 pages. Back up information may be put in appendix; the students cannot expect the examiners to have read the appendices, and information only found in the appendix will not be considered in the grading; thorough and complete documentation of empirical data in appendix is however part of the grading criteria. The appendix serves as reference for readers with special interest in understanding in more detail about specific points made in the report. Scope of individual reflection report: max 2 pages. The report should target the last learning goal above (Apply theoretical concepts and approaches to critically reflect... etc) Duration of oral examination: 20 minutes per examinee, including evaluation and feedback.