THE WALLACE E. CARROLL SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT MD240: Management Information Systems Fall 2002
	Comments or Suggestions?  E-mail Prof. Heim

Case Study Questions: Woodstrat: A Support System for Strategic Management
(http://www.wiley.com/college/turban2e/pdf/part1.pdf)
1. Why should modern strategic planning be a dynamic process? How does this differ from traditional strategic planning? How does the Woodstrat system facilitate modern strategic planning?
2. What challenges (data oriented and otherwise) were encountered while developing the Woodstrat system?
3. What side benefits and/or new employee tasks resulted from using Woodstrat?
4. Why was it important for managers to be able to quickly access measures of critical success factors? Do some measures find more acceptance among managers?
5. Was the choice of IT architecture for Woodstrat appropriate for the strategic objectives of Metsa-Serla? How do you think the Woodstrat system should have changed technologically since its development? How would such changes have improved the strategic planning facilitated by Woodstrat?


Case Study Questions: DaimlerChrysler EBOKs with Knowledge Management
(p. 428-430)
1. Platform design at DaimlerChrysler led directly to a reduction in the time to market and in costs for new vehicles. Explain how it caused new problems.
2. What is meant by a community of practice? How did DaimlerChrysler leverage the knowledge within such a community?
3. Describe the Engineering Book of Knowledge. Explain how it is updated by adding new knowledge of practice.
4. How successful was the knowledge management initiative at DaimlerChrysler?
5. Consider how a book of knowledge could impact another organization, ideally one with which you are affiliated (e.g., Boston College, your job, your family business). Describe the potential impacts, and list the benefits. Would there be any organizational culture issues to deal with? Why or why not?


Case Study Questions: Nabisco Net Brings Sweet Success
(http://www.wiley.com/college/turban2e/pdf/part3.pdf)
1. Which segments is Nabisco attempting to understand and serve better using intelligent agents?
2. What problems were encountered in developing and deploying Nabisco's intelligent agent system?
3. What data mining activities are done by the intelligent agents?
4. Who are the end-users of such a system? How can the agents track end-user behavior patterns?
5. Why is the system connected to the EIS?
6. What is the role of the expert system in ISIS?
7. How does all this IT (i.e. ISIS) contribute to the phenomenal growth rate of Nabisco? Can smaller companies successfully compete against Nabisco when it has technologies such as ISIS?