Particular Assignment Browning

Jason W Cleveland

MIT 500-Case Study 2

January 29, 2012

1. What do I think of the particular assignment given to Browning?

Browning did not have an easy task at hand. Because IMT was a combination of different companies with decentralized leadership based of geographic location and then further split into two heads of one animal with cost and R&D separating them. Browning walked into a hornet’s nest. Any one of the four options could place an already struggling market in jeopardy. Overall Browning did a great job at understanding the task and the current company environment. He stayed in his lane and tried to give honest feedback to June.

2. Consider CMCI’s Mission/Vision Statement and the Fort Wayne MIS Directions and Objectives Statement. What is your opinion of these Statements? Are they appropriate? Are they comprehensive? Are they at the correct level of generality? Were these statements appropriately developed and adopted?

My thoughts are that the CMCI’s statement in 1997 is not very inspiring. It reads like a dime store novel in that it really does not say anything or give direction and purpose. While after reading Mr. O’Neil memo/Directions and Objectives Statement I get a fuller since of where the ship is heading and what the demands are for company moving ahead. O’Neil talks about being structured and having a reasonable level of risk in moving forward. I would say that given the timeline and events of when both of these statements were written that they both provided some form of leadership and common management tools. They speak about similar things that are universal within any given business, but I believe O’Neils to be more a map to solution rather then Edward Fortesque.

Mr. Fortesque statement was very limited in vision and not comprehensive enough. While both statements do talk about similar things if you are going to use it to bring three different companies in-line with each other it is too general. I would say Fortesque’s stamen would be the correct level if it were geared towards one company with one set of values. Plus this was only issued at the Fort Wayne site and not adopted by the US division. Joe O’Neil’s management memo also has some holes in it as well. While I think it to be appropriate for his level of influence within the company I think he does not provide an all too comprehensive version. In his own words “ I do not have a formal mission for the MIS group, but essentially I am looking to provide an adequate, responsive, and economical network structure of data processing support for all sites within the division” (Managing Information Technology, Brown, pg. 120) I would expect a senior manager to have a vision and guidance to his division.

Overall