Activity 1

1. Who is Tom?
Tom Walters is the Director of Information Technology in college.
2. What is the project he joined? Apply IT in education
Tom and his staff developed plans to start requiring students either to lease or
purchase tablets at their college the next year.
3. What did he do?
Tom sent an e-mail to all faculty and staff in September, and briefly described his
plans. He did not get much response, however, until the February faculty meeting. As
he described some of the details of his plan, the chairs of the History, English,
Philosophy, and Economics departments all voiced their opposition to the idea.
4. What is the problem?
Almost all of their students already had state-of-the art laptops and would not want to
pay a mandatory fee to lease less-powerful tablets.

Did not address what moving to laptops environment really means to the college.
Should he did that, he could have anticipated some of the oppositions.

5. How to solve?
Project team would have to put a project management plan
◦ Decide whether student should lease or purchase laptops
◦ What type of SW and HW
◦ How much to charge students
◦ How to handle training
More accurate cost estimate, if it is too high compared to the benefits, the project
should be canceled in the development phase before wasting time and money in the
next phases
Tom could have created a committee from faculty and staff to develop a business case that
studies: Top Management
• need of increasing the use of technology on campus
• its alternative ways
• its effects on students, faculty, and staff
Estimate initial cost of establishing laptop technology on campus