Questions/Goals for Course based on
in-class discussion on 1/9/2003:

  1. As a manager, how do you ask yourself -- and your people -- about the right problems to fit them with the right solutions?
  2. What questions do you ask a consultant/vendor? How will a new solution work with existing people/infrastructure?
  3. How to interpret what's "good" and what's "bad" about a journal article?
  4. New developments in systems/technologies and how that would affect various industries
  5. Current issues - lawsuits against Peoplesoft -- implementation issues
  6. The impact of IS on both customers & employees -- does that impact the organization of your system(s) -- how do you link your systems together?
  7. How do you pick which software to go with?  (for example, SAP vs. Peoplesoft)
  8. Security of systems
  9. What would go into managing hardware? How would you go about buying a whole new network?
  10. Issues that come up when problems occur? Typical reasons why things might fail? Things to look out for...
  11. Who is going to be the big company in the next 2-5 years?
  12. One step closer to a dissertation. Maybe in MIS. Looking for areas of research interest.
  13. Get to know major current research topics
  14. Links/articles/personal library to use as new managers
  15. Understand the principal ideas/components that an information system must possess.
  16. How do you evolve/maintain a new system and deal with all the updates & changes?
  17. How do you transition your employees to a new system? Also, change management issues...
  18. Learn how to write a better research paper
  19. How do you incorporate the strategies and mistakes of other managers to avoid making them yourself?
  20. Have a better understanding of the tools available to explain to board of directors the productivity gains from new software
  21. How do you define the problem addressed by an article in concrete terms? (what makes a theoretical contribution)
  22. How do you utilize the new systems to help in decision making, market research, etc., based on time constraints and budget?
  23. What are the different streams of research that are going on now?